


Only a Badly Dressed Qunari

by Scrunchles



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drinking, Drunken Flirting, Iron Bull with Children, M/M, Skinner/Dalish - Freeform, lots of puns, puns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-30 18:25:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3947089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunchles/pseuds/Scrunchles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for submitted AU #167 from awful-aus's tumblr, Dorian is babysitting a Magister's son when the kid runs off and meets the Iron Bull.  Bull hangs out with them to help Dorian retain his sanity and decides he likes the prickly little flirtatious 'Vint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Two board games, six coloring books, one puzzle, three unfinished movies and macaroni and cheese decorating the wall of his dining room had lead Dorian Pavus to this point.

 

There was gravel in his left shoe, and his right ear was still ringing from listening to the excited wails of Magister Anatis's five year old on their drive to the park.  He made sure that he had a visual of the child—Jonas—who appeared to be on the slide, before glancing down at his phone and answering a few text messages and then browsing facebook.

 

He had taken his eyes off of the child for a minute, maybe five, when he glanced back up and he didn't see him anymore.

 

"Oh, no."

 

Dorian stood from the bench and hobbled forward despite the sharp stab of the gravel in his shoe.  "Jonas!" he called, headed for the slide he had last seen him on, and feeling panic overtake him.

 

His father was going to kill him.

 

This was a killing offense.

 

Dorian turned in a slow circle, watching and listening carefully.  Most children’s giggles of glee sounded the same, but Jonas was different.  There was a certain manic edge to his laughter that made Dorian want to run the other way.  In that respect, he was a Tevinter magister already, even if he was only five.  He had all the qualities of a senator of the Imperium.  Most importantly, he a confounding trouble maker.

 

He heard it on his second sweep, an intense giggling coupled with a deep chuckle.  Oh, Maker.  

 

He'd allowed a magister's son to be kidnapped and molested, hadn't he?

 

Dorian was already summoning frost to his fingertips when he rounded the slide to see—Jonas hanging from the horn of a positively  _massive_  Qunari.  He was wearing an open Hawaiian shirt and shorts of a somewhat similar print but in a color that clashed so badly with the shirt, it made Dorian's head ache.  He was also wearing those dreadful sandals that had straps and a heel covering and they were the most tacky blend of purple and turquoise that Dorian had ever seen.

 

He had allowed a magister's son to be abducted by a homeless man.  No one who had the ability to purchase clothes and choose what they wore would  _ever_  put such a blindingly  _terrible_  outfit together.

 

He allowed the frost to disperse and awkwardly crossed his arms as he slowly approached the two.  "Excuse me!" he called before dropping his arms to his side and beginning to stride rather than creep.  A single eye turned to focus on him and the silver of the man's metal eyepatch glinted in the sunlight.  As Dorian got closer he realized that dark tattoos lined his gray arms in intricate sleeves, and one slipped under the sleeve of the Hawaiian shirt at his elbow to slip out of the collar and curl across his neck, stopping on his throat.

 

"E-excuse me, but that appears to be my...  Ah...  My  _charge,_ " he admitted, hands gesticulating with his words as he fought the urge to cross his arms again.  He had nothing to be defensive about.  If this brute had any problems with him taking Jonas back, then he would simply turn him into a large, muscular, gray ice statue and take Jonas back himself.

 

"Aw..." Jonas pouted when he was scooped up in massive arms, cradled briefly like a newborn, and then maneuvered carefully back to stand on his own two feet on the ground.

 

"Sorry," the Qunari's voice was surprisingly soft yet gravelly.  He had a slight accent, but Dorian was certain from the lightness of it that he was fluent in the Common Tongue.  He was also certain that he was apologizing to the  _child_  rather than Dorian.

 

"Yes, well, thank you.  Come along, Jonas.  We're leaving."  He held out a hand to the child, but Jonas just crossed his arms and glared at him.

 

"No! We haven't done  _anything_  fun today!  And now that I'm having fun, you want to ruin it!"  Jonas stomped his feet and pouted and Maker's mercy, if Dorian didn't have better control of himself he would have struck the child for making such a scene.

 

His father would have, if it were a five-year-old Dorian in Jonas's place.

 

"Jonas, we have done plenty of fun things today.  And we are going to do _more_ —away from... Well..."  Dorian motioned to the Qunari pathetically.

 

"The Iron Bull," the gray giant provided.

 

" _Really_?"  Dorian raised a brow at the man.

 

"People like to know what they're getting."  He might have winked, if the roguish cant of his head was anything to go off of, but Dorian couldn't have been sure—and he  _didn't care_  if that was the case, either.

 

"Interesting... Anyway, say goodbye, Jonas.  We  _are leaving_ ," he said firmly, stepping closer and reaching his hand out to grab the child.

 

Rather than be good and allow Dorian to collect him properly—possibly  _improperly_ , since Dorian had never taken a class on forcibly making children do anything—Jonas turned away and clambered up the Qunari like he was a jungle gym.

 

Two thick hands caught him before he could reach the horns atop the Iron Bull's head, and though he wiggled and pleaded and pouted, the Qunari held him fast, firm but not hard enough to hurt him.  And, though Jonas wasn't getting his way, he wasn't screeching.

 

As Dorian watched the giant, tattooed one-eyed Qunari set the child back down, the next six hours of his life flashed before his eyes.  Sticky fingers, crying when he said, "no," refusing to eat the perfectly reasonable food he provided, whining about being bored, throwing said food.  That was what awaited him.

 

"Say... Iron Bull, was it?" He asked, licking his lips and watching the man fend off the grabbing hands of a spoiled five-year-old like it was normal.  All in a day's work avoiding being climbed upon by a human child.

 

Iron Bull looked up from holding the kid at arm's length with his palm on his forehead and gave a very convincing pout.  "You left off the, 'the.' "

 

"...  _The_  Iron Bull... What are you doing for the next few hours?" Dorian asked.

 

"That's a very inspecific time frame." 

 

"His father picks him up at six.  I have had him for less than two hours and I am close to murdering a child less than half my size please help me..." He was a broken man.  Dorian should never have agreed to do this for his father.  "Any amount of time you're willing to do  _whatever_  you're doing right now, I would be indebted to you for it."

 

The child had given up fighting Iron Bull's arm, and was huffing and puffing, just leaning his forehead into the Qunari's palm.  Though he was still for the moment, he wasn't throwing a fit.  He was being reasonable.  Kind of.

 

The Iron Bull suddenly let the kid go and stepped to the side, letting him pitch forward and almost face plant in the gravel of the playground.

 

"Am I getting paid for this?" the Iron Bull asked, looking at Dorian expectantly as he took the brunt of tiny fists hitting his thigh and hip.  Jonas had recovered quickly, and now was apparently payback time for the Iron Bull.

 

"Whatever you want," Dorian said in all seriousness.  He was at his wit's end.  He would, of course, watch the Iron Bull watch Jonas, but interacting directly with the child was simply  _exhausting_ and so _futile._

 

The Iron Bull grinned, and Dorian realized just how many scars his face had.  He remembered that he had two tattoo sleeves, one of which went all the way to his throat.  There were more tattoos peeking out from where his Hawaiian shorts covered his hips.  He had an eyepatch.

 

Oh, Maker, how low had he sunk?

 

"Hey, kid, let's go play on the swings," the Iron Bull offered.

 

"Yeah!" Jonas pumped his fists in the air, and went immediately from hitting Iron Bull to running toward the two sets of swings set up in the middle of the park.

 

The Iron Bull gave Dorian another sly look and a maybe-wink as he turned to follow the kid.

 

Just what had his big mouth and his low tolerance for this particular child just gotten him into?

 

:::::

 

Dorian spent some time texting and browsing the Internet and social media applications, but more and more he found himself watching the Iron Bull work magic with Jonas.  Mostly because he felt guilty for foisting his responsibility onto a man he had only just met, and also because there was a Qunari entertaining a magister’s child in an Orlesian park.  Regardless, whatever the Qunari was doing _worked_.

 

Rather than push the kid away when he tried to clamber all over him, the Iron Bull allowed Jonas to swing from his horns.  He used the giggling child to do some impressive bicep curls, and he let him sit on his shoulders and mime being an airplane while the Iron Bull ran around in circles and _made the_   _engine noises for him_.

 

Dorian watched the spectacle for far longer than he intended.  He watched until the circles stopped and Jonas was left holding onto the Iron Bull’s horns like handle bars, laughing and shouting, “go! Stop! Go! Stop! Stop!”

 

On the last, “stop,” the Iron Bull moved anyway.  Jonas squealed and kicked his feet, causing the Iron Bull to wince when little manic heels dug into his chest.  The Iron Bull put up with Jonas’s feet kicking him for a few more commands before he plucked the child from his shoulders and started swinging him around in circles, his hands cupped under Jonas's armpits.

 

Jonas didn’t even complain that it wasn’t what  _he_  chose.  He just laughed and screamed, “faster!” while kicking his feet and clutching the sleeves of the Iron Bull’s ridiculous shirt. 

 

Dorian’s phone vibrated, dragging his attention away from the two.  He had missed five text messages.

 

Dorian checked the time, and then shifted to put his phone back in his pocket as he hesitantly stood.  He almost sat back down before he strode over and stood awkwardly by while the Iron Bull slowed to a stop. 

 

The Qunari glanced up at him, and grinned before saying, “catch,” and  _throwing_  the child at him.

 

Dorian caught Jonas, of course.  He was fit, strong and highly coordinated. 

 

Which was why he caught him and then gently lowered him to the ground  _safely_.

 

The “awwwww…” came from both of them—the child standing before Dorian and the hulking, sweating lunatic in a colorful tent of a shirt who had just thrown a five-year-old at him with little more warning than  _catch._

 

"I think that's enough of...  _That_  for now.  Shall we go get something to eat?" Dorian suggested, aware that Jonas hadn't eaten since his father had dropped him off after breakfast.

 

"I'm not hungry!" Jonas lied, crossing his arms and pouting up at Dorian like he actually had a say in the matter.

 

Dorian looked up at the Iron Bull as if to say, "see what I have to deal with?"

 

The Iron Bull laughed and knelt down, turning Jonas around so that they were almost eye to eyes.  "Do you know how I got to be so big, Jonas?" he asked.

 

"Lots of playing?" The little boy answered hopefully.

 

"That too," he chuckled and clapped Jonas gently on the shoulder, "but a lot of it was eating when my Tama told me to."

 

"You can play more after," Dorian added.

 

"Promise?" Jonas turned to look at Dorian, and he was genuinely startled that the little boy seemed to actually be _asking_ rather than demanding for once.

 

"I promise," Dorian said, nodding.

 

"With the Iron Bull?"

 

"Uh..." Dorian glanced up at the Qunari and choked on his, "no."  He knew his face screamed, "please don't leave me alone with this thing again."

 

The Iron Bull stared up at Dorian with a smirk.

 

"The Iron Bull," Dorian said, swallowing his pride, "will you eat lunch with us?"

 

"Sounds like bonus work," Iron Bull said, flashing Dorian a grin.  

 

Dorian nodded reluctantly and heaved a sigh.  "I will, of course, buy..."

 

"Good enough," the Iron Bull said before standing and offering his left hand to Jonas.

 

Dorian noticed that he was missing his pinky and ring fingers at the first knuckle and that his middle finger had a thin chunk missing from where a blade must have followed through. 

 

"Wow! What happened?!" Jonas exclaimed, taking the Iron Bull's hand in both of his and staring at the scarred knuckle tips in morbid curiosity.

 

"I was playing with knives," the Iron Bull told him, gently leading Jonas to the sidewalk that lead out of the park.

 

"Lesson learned, I assume?" Dorian quipped, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he followed the two.

 

The Iron Bull shot him a grin and belted out a loud laugh.  "Yep! I learned a lot that day."

 

"It looks  _cool_ ," Jonas confided, jumping up to grip the Iron Bull's bicep and hanging briefly before dropping back to the sidewalk.  He stumbled, then caught his balance and began to run to catch up to the Iron Bull's long strides.

 

Dorian warred with himself for a moment before he took a chance and swooped in behind Jonas.  He hoisted him up and over his head to sit on his shoulders.

 

Jonas's hands fisted in his hair, musing it, but he didn't kick Dorian.  He didn't scream or squeal or demand anything at all.  It was the most tolerable Jonas had ever been with Dorian. 

 

"Hey! Look at you, actually doing what I assume is your job." The Iron Bull nudged Dorian with his knuckles and chuckled.

 

"High five!" Jonas shouted excitedly.

 

The Iron Bull rolled his eye and raised his hand up for Jonas to smack.  "So, where are you taking us for lunch?"

 

"High five!"  Jonas demanded again.

 

The Iron Bull raised his hand up as high as he could.  Dorian felt Jonas straining for the hand and patted his leg sympathetically.  "Someday,  _filius_."

 

Jonas sagged over his head and said the most pitiful version of, " _vashante kaffas,_ " Dorian had ever heard.

 

"If you actually eat your food this time, I won't tell your father that you're butchering your heritage and using foul language at the same time," Dorian told him.

 

"Can I have ice cream?"

 

"Ice cream is not food."

 

"Whoa now, ice cream is  _definitely_  food!" the Iron Bull interjected, only to get smacked by Dorian.

 

"Don't encourage him."

 

"Can I encourage  _you_ , then?"

 

Dorian went another three steps before he realized that the Qunari had just flirted with him.  He felt heat creep up his neck and glanced up at the Iron Bull, who had a smug expression.

 

"And what would you _encourage_ in front of a small child?"

 

"You'd be surprised."  He wiggled his brows and gave Dorian another one of those damned possibly-winks.

 

The heat crept higher to Dorian's cheeks.  "You're incorrigible!"

 

"I'm also encouragable."

 

"Well _I'm_ _not_!"

 

"Aw, don't be like that.  The Iron Bull believes in you!"

 

" _Vashante kaffas!_ " Dorian snapped only to have his ear slapped by the five-year-old on his shoulders.  

 

"If I can't say it, Dorian can't say it!"

 

Dorian said a few more choice phrases in Tevene as he lifted Jonas from his shoulders and set him back down to walk on his own.

 

"Hey, let's duck in here.  I know this place," the Iron Bull rested a hand on Dorian's shoulder to direct him into a hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop.

 

"This isn't icecream," Jonas commented, clinging to Dorian's hand as they entered the strangely large door.

 

"He's going to becomes Archon someday with those kinds of observational skills," the Iron Bull remarked, entering behind Dorian and then immediately walking past him to the counter.

 

"I hope not.  The Imperium has more problems than just ice cream shortage and not enough play time."  Dorian looked around the place curiously.  What would draw the Iron Bull to such a small shop?—besides its vaguely Qunari-sized door.

 

"Krem cheese!  You've got customers!"  The Iron Bull yelled, striding in and leaning on the counter heavily.

 

"Andraste's tit--" the employee who came out of the back paused when he saw the child present and continued eloquently, "uh... Titmouse.  Andraste's titmice and baby blue birds, what's up, Chief?  Where's Dalish and Skinner?  Who's the 'Vints?"

 

"First things first, two Dragon Maws with chips and drinks and one of those kid's sandwiches you make--"

 

"They're not kid's sandwiches, they're Orlesians  _croque_ -"

 

"It's a _fancy grilled cheese_ , Krem.  It's a kid's sandwich.  Anyway, Dalish and Skinner are still at the park.  Dalish is trying to convince Skinner yoga will help her with anger management and these two 'Vints are hanging out with me because the tall one sucks with kids and the short one is a kid," the Iron Bull told Krem while he worked.  Krem tossed a slip of paper with their order through the window behind him and then started ringing it up on the register.

 

Dorian fished out his wallet as he stepped forward to pay.  "Normally I would order for myself," he commented, handing over enough cash to cover the meal.

 

"Careful or he'll say you can order for him when you go out with him next week," Krem commented as he busily flipped through the cash drawer for Dorian's change.

 

"I was  _not_." The Iron Bull looked too pouty to be telling the truth, so Dorian slipped a few ones in the tip jar.

 

"Hmm... Thank you for the tip," Dorian flashed Krem a grin, and the man laughed and winked at him in a way that reminded him of the Iron Bull.

 

"And you." Krem nodded at the tip jar.  "Food should be up in a few minutes-- here's your cups.  Just let Bull know if you need anything," Krem told Dorian, leaning over the counter to hand Jonas his cup personally.

 

"You're really pretty.  Are you a girl?" Jonas suddenly asked, staring hard at Krem.

 

"Aw... How cute and invasive."  Krem patted Jonas's head as he withdrew back across the counter.

 

Dorian sighed and turned Jonas firmly around to visit the fountain drink machine and patted his back as a signal to go that direction.  "Apologies," he said to Krem.

 

"Hey, unless you're his brother or father, don't worry about it.  If you are, well, you might want to work on that," Krem told him as he headed back into the back.

 

Dorian sighed and suddenly realized that he had just sent a five-year-old over to get a drink from a potential giant mess. He whirled around to see that the Iron Bull had once again taken over for him.

 

The Iron Bull was holding Jonas up to press the button, and allowed him to fill his cup a little before wiggling him around wildly and causing him to giggle and scream, "stop!" before stopping and then doing it again once he had fallen into a sense of complacency.

 

Dorian smiled, a wave of gratitude washing over him as he walked over to fill his own cup with water.  "You really are good with him," he remarked to the Iron Bull.

 

"Yeah?"  He chuckled and finally set Jonas down.  "Pick a table, kiddo."

 

"I want the biggest one!"  Jonas announced, running toward the longest table in the middle of the restaurant.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

"Yes,” Dorian said as he watched Jonas claim the table by putting his drink down and attempting to sit on two of the chairs at once.  “Do you have children? You seem to have experience with them."  

 

"Ah... No, I don't.  I was a bit like the big brother of my compound.  I’ve just kind of always had a knack for kids.”  The Iron Bull shrugged and filled his own drink.  Dorian waited for him, leaning against the counter and watching Jonas circle the table and test all of the seats.

 

“You didn’t let him get a soda, did you?” he suddenly asked, trying to imagine the little boy bouncing off the walls any more than he already was.

 

“Yeah, don’t worry.  I’ll deal with it.  He’ll crash in…” the Iron Bull rolled his eye up to the ceiling and sucked his teeth in thought, “maybe another hour if you’re lucky.  Three if you’re not.”  The Iron Bull shrugged and handed Dorian a straw as they approached the table.

 

“Thank you—I hope my luck is good, then.  Even with your help, I’m not sure if I’ll survive this much longer,” Dorian admitted.

 

“Nah, you’ll be fine,” the Iron Bull assured him.  “I mean, if there’s nothing left once the kid gets done with you, how will I get my payment?”

 

There was something lewd about the way that the Iron Bull said it.  Dorian looked up at him with a frown.  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that… when I said _anything_ , what I meant was within reason—“

 

“Hey, _anything_ is dinner at a nice place.  Just because I’m Qunari doesn’t mean I’m a savage brute with no class,” the Iron Bull cut him off, waving his hand dismissively.

 

“What are you guys talking about?”  Jonas asked curiously.

 

“Nothing,” Dorian replied, flicking his straw wrapper at the Iron Bull with a frown.  “Just about how the Iron Bull is going to let you play Red Light, Green Light on the way back to the car, and if he messes up, he has to walk a block with you hanging from his horns.”

 

“Ohhh, that’s mean.  My neck’s gonna hurt from that.”  The Iron Bull rolled his eye, but smiled good-naturedly nonetheless.

 

“Good.”

 

:::::

 

The Iron Bull was truly amazing. 

 

On their walk back to the car, Jonas hung on the Iron Bull’s horns twice, and his punishment for not being able to hold on for the whole block was to run circles around the Iron Bull and Dorian as they walked—occasionally getting in the way of other pedestrians—until Iron Bull told him to stop.  The fact that he allowed himself to be buckled into the back seat and didn’t shout about wanting to do something fun told Dorian that he was beginning to approach naptime territory already. 

 




 

He really hoped so.

 

The Iron Bull was extremely out of place in Dorian’s neighborhood, but his neighbors weren’t outside, so Dorian didn’t have to explain anything on the way in.  When his father returned with Jonas’s father, he would have to figure something out, but that was hours away.  He had time.

 

What he _did_ have to explain was the state of his house. 

 

“Okay, so those are the puzzle pieces we decided went better in the wrong matches.  There are tiny sharp tokens from Battleship all over the carpet, so if you want to keep your sandals on, that’s understandable, and then there’s the mac and cheese now dried onto the wall of my dining room… I swear that my home doesn’t usually look like this…” Dorian didn’t care what the Iron Bull thought of his housekeeping.  He didn’t.  He just wanted to set the record straight that this was not normally what his home looked like.

 

“Jonas, did you do all this?” the Iron Bull asked, raising a disappointed brow at the five-year-old following them through the living room full of puzzle and Battleship pieces.

 

“… maybe…?  I was gonna clean it up…” Jonas promised.  He was attempting to turn on whatever charm he usually used to get out of these sorts of situations.  Dorian knew the look because he had perfected it at the tender age of four.

 

“Oh, well, in that case start collecting puzzle pieces,” Dorian told him, pointing at the puzzle still spread across the carpet.

 

Jonas narrowed his eyes at Dorian before he turned and stomped off to do as he was told for once.

 

“Maker, you’re brilliant,” Dorian told the Iron Bull softly, nudging him further into the apartment and unbuckling his complicated jacket fastenings.  He draped it over the back of a chair in the dining room and went to the fridge.  “Can I get you anything?  I know we just ate—“

 

“Got any beer?”

 

Dorian reared back from the refrigerator incredulously only for the Iron Bull to laugh at him.  “You’re terrible,” he told the Iron Bull, pulling out a bottle of tea and throwing it at him.

 

“Brilliant to terrible in two seconds.  Not really a record, but I’m okay with that.”

 

Dorian chuckled as he moved to get a bucket and sponge from beneath the sink.  “Well, there’s still time.”

 

“I’m done with the puzzle!”  Jonas announced from the living room.

 

“Good lad, now make sure the game pieces all end up in the box,” the Iron Bull told him.

 

“Awwww!”  Jonas pouted into the dining room with the expression of a child whose life was filled with unfairness.

 

“Afterward, we can watch a movie,” the Iron Bull promised as he pulled out a chair at the table and sat down.

 

“Can I sit with you first?” Jonas asked, sweet as anything.

 

Dorian rolled his eyes as he began cleaning the child’s mess from his wall.

 

“Only if you apologize to Dorian for the macaroni thing,” the Iron Bull told him, scooting out a little from the table.

 

“I’m sorry, Dorian,” Jonas said before hurrying over to hop up into the Iron Bull’s lap.

 

“For?”  Dorian asked as he scrubbed, unwilling to look at Jonas, who was still acting like he hadn’t done anything bad.

 

“For telling you your cooking sucked and throwing the macaroni and cheese at the wall.  It was _very_ rude of me, and I won’t do it again.”  There was a formula to the way Jonas said it that told Dorian he was used to apologizing under the pressure of someone he respected.

 

“Well, that’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it?” Dorian said sarcastically. 

 

He heard the chair creak as the Iron Bull shifted.

 

“Alright, now go put that game back up and pick out a movie.  And it _better_ have animation and singing animals, you hear me?”

 

“Okay!”  Jonas’s bare feet slapped against the tile floor of the dining room as he left.

 

Dorian merely glared at the mess slowly disappearing from his wall.

 

“You know you were probably just as bad when you were a kid, right?” the Iron Bull commented from his seat.

 

“Oh?  How could you know?” Dorian asked, tossing the sponge into the bucket and kneeling to wash the noodles and crusty cheese from the floor.

 

“Eh, magister kids are all the same.  You think because someone tries to tell you what to do, you’ve gotta put them through hell to make sure they’re worthy of your obedience or something.”  The Iron Bull drained the last of his drink as Dorian looked up from the floor and raised a brow at him.

 

“And why didn’t he do that with you?” Dorian asked, frowning.

 

“Because I didn’t immediately start telling him what to do.  He asked if he could touch my horns, I let him.  He asked if I could hold him off the ground with them, and I did… and then you looked _totally freaked out_ when you came up so he probably thought hanging out with me would just make you unhappy, so he did, and then he started having fun with me.”  The Iron Bull shrugged and flicked his empty bottle at the trashcan in the corner of the open kitchen.  “The first thing you probably did when he walked in was tell him to take his shoes off, don’t touch anything and he could do a puzzle or something while you jacked around on your phone.”

 

“That is...” exactly what he had done.  “… _ridiculous_.”

 

“Yeah, sure.”

 

They lapsed into silence as Dorian finished cleaning up the mess and emptied the bucket in the sink.  Dorian stood leaning back against the sink and sipping his drink while the Iron Bull studied him coolly from his spot at the table.  It felt like forever before Jonas came running back into the dining room announcing his victory over his own mess.

 

“Good, what movie did you pick?” Dorian asked, pushing off the counter and following Jonas back into the living room.

 

“Let’s finish that one with the weird name from before,” Jonas told Dorian with a grin.

 

The Iron Bull scooped Jonas up with a, “grah!” before depositing him over the back of the couch and hopping over to join him while Dorian put the movie back in.

 

Dorian wondered how much easier the day would have been if he had known the Iron Bull’s observations prior to first demanding that Jonas put his backpack down and play quietly with his coloring books.

 

He kicked the Iron Bull’s leg gently to get him to scoot over before sitting on the couch with the Iron Bull’s arm slung behind him and Jonas halfway in the Qunari’s lap.

 

Jonas didn’t last half an hour. 

 

Dorian glanced at the softly snoring child, sleeping against the Iron Bull’s side with his bright shirt clutched tightly in his fist.  He smiled softly before turning back to the movie and feeling his own eyes begin to get heavy.

 

A knock on the door startled Dorian from the fade.  He sat up slowly, loathe to leave the warm pillow of the Iron Bull’s shoulder, but knowing he had to.  But why?

 

“Dorian, we’re back— _Vashante kaffas_!” 

 

His father.

 

Dorian felt the ripple of magic across the fade and sat up quickly, his hand already out to nullify the incoming spell.  He clutched at the fade, pulling the magic from the spell his father had just cast in their direction and sleepily flopping across the back of the couch once he deemed it safe.  The living room smelled of singed ozone and the strange _cleanness_ that followed a nullification.

 

“Welcome back, father.”  Dorian yawned and ducked out of the way of the Iron Bull’s horn as he turned his head to look at the door.  “Please refrain from killing our new friend the Iron Bull.  Jonas likes him.”

 

“He’s also still asleep,” the Iron Bull said in a subdued voice.  He raised a finger to his mouth to shush Magister Pavus and Dorian pressed his face to the couch to keep from laughing at the expression his father had.

 

This was going to be a spectacular argument, he just knew it.

 

Magister Anatis entered behind Dorian’s father and looked like he was going to have a heart attack.

 

A Qunari in the same room as his darling five-year-old son?

 

Yes, Dorian was going to hear about this for _years_.

 

He climbed from the couch and gently lifted Jonas from Iron Bull’s side.  The Qunari helped him extricate the child’s hands from his shirt and stretched with a yawn as Dorian carried the child to his father. 

 

Magister Anatis’s face was entirely red as he took Jonas from Dorian, resting his head on his shoulder carefully and allowing Dorian to retrieve his coat and back pack for him. 

 

“That will do,” he said, obviously furious, before giving Magister Pavus a vicious look and turning to leave.

 

The room was entirely silent aside from the TV still running in the background.

 

“Well, then, if that’s all, father, I believe my friend and I have a movie to finish?”  Dorian said hopefully.

 

“ _Dorian Pavus_ —“

 

“Hey, Dorian, I’m gonna go find your can.  Have fun with this,” the Iron Bull stood to his full height and clapped Dorian on the shoulder as he passed him, heading further into the house.

 

“Father, we both know that I am fully capable of protecting myself and a child.  He’s only a badly dressed Qunari.”

 

“ _Only a badly dressed Qunari_?” Magister Pavus hissed as if he were afraid that the Iron Bull might hear him.  “Dorian, he is covered in tattoos, scars and doesn’t even have his shirt buttoned!  What were you _thinking_?!”

 

“Well, I _was_ thinking that Jonas was finally not throwing game pieces all over my living room and repainting my dining room in macaroni and cheese, so… there was _that_.”  Dorian crossed his arms and glowered at his father.  This was ridiculous.  The Iron Bull wasn’t dangerous, he just… _looked_ a little rough.  “Listen, we can argue about this later.  I know you’ve been in and out of meetings all day, so just… go back to your hotel room and rest.  _Please_.”

 

“I suppose this was just _too much_ for me to ask of you.”  Magister Pavus snapped angrily.  “This could _ruin_ my name, you know.”

 

“Yes, yes, I’m so selfish, whatever will I do with myself?  I may never be able to return to Tevinter and assume the Archon’s throne!  How terrible.”  Dorian stepped past his father and opened the front door.  “Now, please, before we both say something we don’t mean again.”

 

Magister Pavus clenched his jaw and swept out the door in a flurry of Magister’s robes and sharp curses in Tevene.

 

Dorian sighed and shut the door behind him, rubbing the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes tightly.  Jonas had been a disaster, interacting with his father was constantly a disaster. 

 

The Iron Bull slipped back into the living room with a sympathetic smile. 

 

“I’m sorry about all that…” Dorian said sincerely.

 

“It’s fine.  Shit happens, especially with humans and their families.  It’s why you guys have the sit-com business cornered.”  The Iron Bull winked roguishly and Dorian felt himself smiling.

 

“Say… I… do you want to stay a little longer?”  Dorian asked, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.  “I mean… I _do_ have some beer in my fridge.”

 

“You’ll still owe me that dinner date,” the Iron Bull assured him, turning on his heel and heading back into the dining room to get at the fridge.

 

“Oh, it’s a _date_ now, is it?”  Dorian asked, walking over to put all the movies back in their cases.

 

"Yep.  Your dad almost blasting my head off with magic.  That upgrades me from just dinner to a dinner date.”  The Iron Bull informed him as he came back with two beers.

 

“But I _saved you_ ,” Dorian argued half-heartedly.

 

“Thanks for that, by the way,” the Iron Bull told him, passing him an open bottle.

 

“Not at all.  You saved me from a five-year-old, I saved you from a forty-five-year-old.  We’re even.”  Dorian clicked his bottle against the Iron Bull’s and sat on the couch with a sigh.

 

The Iron Bull settled in next to him and his arm went up behind Dorian’s head again.

 

Dorian smiled as he flipped through the channels, waiting for either of them to see something interesting.

 

“You _do_ own something other than Hawaiian prints and sandals, don’t you?” Dorian asked after a few fruitless flips of the channel.

 

“Well, if I don’t, now’s as good a time as any to start, huh?” the Iron Bull smirked at Dorian when he looked at him, and the mage sighed softly before settling on a sit-com rerun.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and the Iron Bull get drunk and flirt a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will freely admit that this is just fluff before the repercussions of chapter 1 hit.

The coffee table was littered with empty bottles, and the TV had been switched to a nature documentary at some point.  The Iron Bull was still sitting up straight, but Dorian was slumped against the arm on his side of the couch, nursing his beer.

“What are we even watching anymore?”  Dorian asked when the Iron Bull laughed loudly at a lioness attacking a young male lion.

“No idea.  They keep switching the animals up and then coming back to others.  To be honest, I’m starting to think it’s a kids’ show,” the Iron Bull replied.

“That  _would_  explain the brightly colored facts running at the top of the screen.”

Both men chuckled softly before devolving into a fit of laughter that ended with Dorian sitting on the floor and leaning against the Iron Bull’s leg.  He wrapped an arm around the leg idly and his fingertips found a scar that ran up the inside of the Iron Bull’s ankle.  He followed it up to the inside of the Iron Bull’s calf and the Qunari twitched his leg a little.

“That tickles, ‘Vint.”

“What happened?” Dorian asked softly, feeling the Iron Bull rest his beer bottle on top of his head briefly.  He smiled and gently ran his fingers along the scar again.  The Iron Bull’s leg jumped again and in a flurry of movement too quick for Dorian’s inebriated brain to handle, the Iron Bull dropped his bottle of beer and lifted Dorian back up to the couch, this time tucked beneath his arm instead of across the couch from him.

“You spilled beer on my carpet,” Dorian said before letting out a giddy laugh.

The Iron Bull rolled his eye and left the bottle.

Dorian let out a soft, mildly distressed sigh, but didn’t move either.  He settled into the Iron Bull’s side and watched a lizard run across the surface of a lake.

“It’s getting late,” the Iron Bull mentioned after they had moved onto red haired tarantulas and then, strangely enough, hammer head sharks.

“You may leave whenever you like,” Dorian told him, yawning.  

“Alright,” the Iron Bull nodded.  He waited until the end of the show before shifting Dorian to lean into the back of the couch instead of on top of him.  “Let’s get you to bed, ‘Vint.”

Dorian pouted when the Iron Bull stood and offered him his hand.  He peered up at the Qunari, leaving his arms crossed.  "Just like that?” Dorian asked.

“Were you expecting more?” The Iron Bull smirked and leaned down so that his face was close to Dorian’s. The beer on his breath wasn’t nearly as offputting as it would have been if Dorian didn’t feel absolutely smashed. He wondered if the alcohol was the cause for the rush of heat that he felt from the leer the Iron Bull was giving him and the massive hands resting on the cushions on either side of him.

“Oh! No, not  _that…_  not yet, anyway, but… are you not going to ask me out?“ he asked.

The Iron Bull didn’t look surprised at the question, but he let his hands drop to Dorian’s sides and shrugged.  "Didn’t think you’d be interested, I mean—”

“Are you  _joking_?” The Tevinter mage raised an unsteady hand to make an overly complicated motion with his hand while he figured out what to say next.  “On what grounds?” he finally asked.

Dorian felt that he had been forward enough since his father had left and they had settled into drinking his fridge dry.  He had attempted to keep himself a little contained, but he mostly just didn’t want to give the Iron Bull the impression that he was desperate, which he  _wasn’t._   Dorian just enjoyed the energy between them—the easy conversation, and how comfortable the Iron Bull’s side was.

“Qunari grounds?” the Iron Bull replied, sighing and settling onto his knees before Dorian.

Dorian scoffed and ignored that he was putting the man in an uncomfortable spot.  "I’ll have you know that you saved me today.  Qunari or no, you saved me from a grueling six hours of torture and I actually enjoyed myself up until my father tried to kill you and you drank all the beer in my fridge.“

The Iron Bull laughed.  "You helped with the last bit.”

Dorian laughed too and his hand found one of the Iron Bull’s.  "So I did.”  He smiled and slipped his fingers into the wide spaces between the Iron Bull’s own.

“Alright, you’re really toast.  Let’s get you to bed.”  The Qunari began to stand again.

“Hah! Buy me dinner first!” Dorian demanded, not letting the Iron Bull stand by keeping a hold on his hand.  “Or at least toast.”  He playfully winked at the Iron Bull when he turned his eye up to look at him, and the other man rolled his eyes.  He was smiling, though.

"Oh, I will,” the Iron Bull assured him as he reached both of his hands forward to take Dorian by the waist.

"Haha…” Dorian didn’t resist until the Iron Bull leaned forward while pulling Dorian forward.  He narrowly missed the Iron Bull’s horn and suddenly found himself over the Qunari’s shoulder.  “I am not a sack of potatoes,” he said mildly, tongue thick with beer.

“Could’ve fooled me,” the Iron Bull replied, patting his rear.  He held Dorian steady with one hand and used the other to push off the couch in order to stand.

Dorian meant to reply, but got lost in a train of thought instead.  Could the Iron Bull really hold him without hurting himself?  His left leg was pretty torn up, and the flesh around the scars had been warmer than the rest of him.  He had been playing with a child all day.  Was Dorian’s frivolity going to exacerbate that?  Was he destined to hurt those who only wanted to help him?  Dorian was sure that he was going to say something about it until the Iron Bull paused in the hallway leading from Dorian’s dining room to the rest of the house.

“Which door’s yours?” he asked, pinching Dorian’s hip.

Dorian’s worries slipped away, as the trip from the living room had been rather smooth.  “The one at the end of the hall,” Dorian replied, pinching the Iron Bull’s rear in retribution.

The Iron Bull pinched him again and began moving with surprising care through the human sized doorway and the narrow hall.  He opened Dorian’s room and ducked through.  He left the light off as he crossed to the bed and bent at the waist to deposit the mage onto the bed.

“Thank you,” Dorian said, shifting himself up further on the bed.  He wanted to flirt more, to ask when the Iron Bull wanted his dinner date, and if he usually ended up in the bedrooms of people he had just met. Unfortunately, his eyelids drooped closed as soon as he had settled in, and though he tried to open his mouth to speak, all it resulted in was a yawn.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian wakes up to find evidence of the Iron Bull around his apartment and Magister Pavus drops him a line to ruin his mood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short little Bull-less chapter to transition to the next plot point.

Dorian had fallen asleep after a night of drinking many times before.  He usually awoke cold and squinting into the light streaming through his bedroom window.

 

The light was there, glaring into his eyes and encouraging him to get up and start the day, but he was warm for a change.  Dorian turned onto his side and curled into the knitted blanket he usually kept folded across the back of his recliner in the living room.

 

He swallowed painfully and blindly reached for his cell phone, hoping that it wasn't dead so that he could at least see what time it was.  Instead of the slim chassis of his phone, Dorian's hand bumped against the smooth, cool plastic of a water bottle.  He wrapped his hand around the bottle and pulled it toward him, eyeing it curiously with one tired eye before cracking it open and taking a drink.  He didn't breathe again until he had guzzled the entire bottle down.

 

Once he felt a little more human, Dorian sat up to look for his phone.  It wasn't sitting on the bedside table, so he checked the pants he still wore, then he turned his head to squint at the dresser, where he kept his charger.  

 

It was plugged in.

 

He licked his lips and stood unsteadily.  If there was coffee made in the kitchen, he felt that a long-term relationship with the Iron Bull might be in order.  

 

The thought made him laugh at the absurdity of it.  It hurt his skull.

 

He retrieved painkillers from the bathroom and washed his face, then grabbed his phone and typed his passcode in.  His phone background had been changed to an attractive picture of himself sleeping.  The pillow hid half of his face, and his hair had flopped across his eyes.  The pillow shoved his lips into a grotesque position and there was a little shine of spit lit up by the flash.

 

"What a complete ass," Dorian sighed, looking at his picture folder for any more evidence of his guest’s assery.  It was the only one the Iron Bull had taken besides what looked like an accidental picture of himself looking like he was concentrating on working a foreign device.  His brow was furrowed and the tip of his tongue stood out pink against the gray of his bottom lip.

 

Dorian wondered how he had figured out his passcode.

 

Dorian checked the guest room on his way to the kitchen, but it looked like it hadn't been touched.  He should have offered, he realized, or at least called him a taxi since he had driven them back.  He was potentially the worst host ever.

 

There was, unfortunately, no waft of coffee from the kitchen, and so Dorian set to making some himself.  While it brewed, he looked around for a note of some sort, but found none.  

 

He did, however, find that the bottles from the previous night had been put in the recycling bin, and the spot where the Iron Bull had spilled his beer smelled of the carpet cleaner Dorian kept in the linen closet but had little idea what to do with.  

 

Dorian stretched and sighed before plopping into his favorite chair and unlocking his phone again.  He checked his note application, found nothing, and then checked his text messages and outgoing calls to see if the Iron Bull might have gotten his number and left his own behind in a roundabout way.  When he found nothing, he checked his contacts for the Iron Bull, but found no trace of him in his contacts-- until he noticed that he had two Halward Pavuses.

 

Dorian smiled and itched his stubble.  "Maker, what kind of a loon does something so peculiar?"

 

He didn't change it right away, not even sure how to tell the two apart quite yet.  Instead, he just had his coffee and went about making a breakfast of scrambled eggs and grapefruit-- his usual hangover remedy.

 

He spent his day between work and thinking about the Iron Bull.  He'd carried him to bed and had cleaned up, made sure Dorian had water and his phone was charged.  The Iron Bull was the perfect guest, which was surprising, considering what Dorian had been lead to believe about Qunari.

 

Brash, violent people who speak very little and don't care much for company at all.  Dorian supposed that there could be exceptions to the rule.  Qunari were also supposed to hate mages, but the Iron Bull seemed to be at ease while he was with Dorian, and he hadn't even been frightened or angry when Dorian's father had been about to attack him.

 

He was either foolish or he knew something Dorian didn't.

 

The numbers in his phone continued to confound Dorian.  The information for both contacts was entirely the same aside from the phone numbers, and Dorian hadn’t memorized a number since he was very small and land lines were the only options for telephone communication within Tevinter.  He eventually decided that he would figure out how to decipher whose number was whose after lunch.  He didn't have the time to waste on studying the numbers for an extended amount of time.  There was work to bed done, after all.  He had a lecture at noon the next day, and was slotted to view two promising apartments within his price range before he had to be at the Spire.

 

Dorian's phone rang an hour before lunch.  When he checked the ID, it said  _Halward Pavus_.

 

Dorian smiled as he answered, confident that he had won something by waiting for the Iron Bull to call him first.  Now he knew which number he needed to change.

 

"Be honest," he didn't try to sound suave, it just happened naturally, "you just couldn't wait to hear my voice again, could you?"

 

"If honesty is what you want, Dorian, I could go an  _age_  without having to hear your voice at the moment."  Magister Pavus's voice was clipped, concise and provided none of the expected warmth that the Iron Bull's rustic charm would have.

 

Dorian suddenly felt tired, his mood ruined, and rested his cheek on his fist.  "Apologies, I thought I was about to speak to someone who actually enjoys my company." He rolled his eyes and grabbed his coffee cup.  "Carry on," he said as he stood and headed from his study to the kitchen, "let's get the lashing over with."

 

"Lashing?"  Halward laughed humorlessly.  "My dear, stupid boy, what do you think you've done?  Just refused another perfect suitor?  Just told your mother and I that our dreams for you are for not?  _Just_  put all of our time and resources to waste for the past thirty years only to decide that you would rather move to Orlais and work at a southern school of magi because Minrathos wasn't far enough away from what you  _are._ What you  _should be."_

 

Dorian refilled his coffee cup and wondered how long this rant would take.  He pressed mute on his phone and set it to speaker.  Then, he carried both his coffee and his phone back to his study, determined to get back to work.

 

After five minutes of hearing the same string of disparaging comments about his life choices and some new ones that involved how angry Anais was about finding his  _only son_  with Dorian and his  _Qunari lover._

 

Dorian paused to snort at that.  The Iron Bull was hardly his lover.  He really doubted that love would ever enter the equation at all.  Getting the Iron Bull into bed, however,  _that_  was something Dorian was sure he would love.

 

"... That is why I am cutting you off again."  

 

Dorian stopped writing and looked at his phone.  He sighed heavily before tapping the unmute icon and taking the phone off speaker.  He resisted another long-suffering sigh as he brought it back to his ear and wetted his lips.

 

"You're what?" He asked, like he knew that his father wanted him to.  They had played this game before.  Dorian had found that there really wasn't a _right way_ to handle it.  Begging could work sometimes, not caring could also work.  For now, he was just tired of his father acting like he owed him the world for renting him a one-story house in the outskirts of Val Royeaux.

 

"I'm cutting you off," Halward Pavus repeated.  He always had a way of making it sound final when they both knew that everything would blow over in a few months-- a year at most-- and Dorian would be in another nice house in a city he chose, "finding" himself when all he wanted was for his father to leave him alone and allow him to build his reputation in the southern circles.  He had made great progress at the White Spire, and hoped to be able to give lectures in Cumberland and Redcliffe in a few years.

 

He pushed the legal ledger containing his notes away from him and relaxed back into his executive chair.  He would miss it while he was gone.  It and all the other large belongings he couldn't pack into a taxi would be put in storage--again-- and he would have to make due with studying in the Spire library.  How daunting.

 

"Alright, how long do I have to find a new place?" Dorian asked, careful not to add "this time" out of the worry that he might not give him until the month's rent ran out.

 

"Until the end of the week.  I've already spoken to the landlord, and if you aren't--"

 

"I will be," Dorian cut him off curtly.  "It was lovely hearing from you, father, as always."  He ended the call and set his phone on the desk, staring at his notes, at the carefully thought out bullet points with their meticulously laid out subject matter.

 

Dorian sighed and mentally counted how much money he had saved in his emergency-apartment fund and his bank account.  Enough for a decent place's deposit.  He would get a check from the Spire the next week and be able to afford both rent and food if he offered to teach more night classes.

 

He studied his contact list, his eyes lingering on Felix's number.  He wanted to talk to his friend so badly.

 

Alexius's number was above it, but he and Dorian hadn't talked since the funeral.  He didn't think it would be pleasant.  None of the comradery or mentorship had survived Felix.

 

Dorian scrolled down through exes and hookups, a few distant relatives and old friends who were still home in Tevinter had first and last names rather than descriptions or nicknames.

 

He came back to the two "Halward Pavus" numbers and stared at them.  The Iron Bull was sweet, but this wasn't something Dorian would push onto him.

 

He flipped back to his recent calls and made sure of his father’s number before going back to his contacts to change the Iron Bull’s number to his name.  If it even was his name.  Dorian wasn’t sure how Qunari went about doing things.  The Iron Bull was the first one he had met socially, though several semesters back he had had a Qunari in one of his magical alchemy classes.  She had been one of his better students, if he remembered correctly.

 

After he had changed the number and made a mental list of all the things he needed to do by the end of the week, he just stopped and stared at the dining room set he had picked out eight months ago.  He would have to leave it behind, along with so many other things he felt he would be lost without-- his favorite chair, his library, his wardrobe would take at least three trips in a cab.  He wouldn't even consider renting a moving truck-- he'd done that once and it was the most thorough fucking his wallet had ever had.

 

Dorian sighed softly and ran a hand through his hair.  He wanted to say that this would be the last time he let this happened, but he knew better.  Magister Pavus would cool off after a few months and he would move Dorian into somewhere nicer than the apartment he could rent.  Then, another four or eight months later, his father would threaten to pull it all from beneath him again.

 

And he kept going back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roughly a week later, Dorian is packing and the Iron Bull stops by to find out why Dorian never called him.

Dorian took a sip from his glass, ice chiming against the chiseled crystal of the sides.  He sighed and took another sip before the first left his throat.  "Thank the Maker for brandy," he murmured, swirling his drink around before taking another sip and leaning over to set it on the hardwood floor, just past the thick rug he was seated on and right next to the half-filled decanter.  

 

He was carefully folding his mage robes, making sure that there wouldn't be any creases in the fabrics when he boxed them.  He had only just finished the first box, and still had a lot to do.  Some of them would be boxed for a long time, so he slipped a few packets of herbs in among the folds to keep them fresh.

 

His doorbell rang halfway through packing his third box.  Dorian ignored it as he refilled his glass. 

 

He wasn't expecting anyone, so if it was his father or someone from the Spire, they could fuck right off.  He was off, he was drinking, and he was full of repressed anger.

 

The doorbell rang again, this time held down so that it was an endless string of the annoying four-note pattern playing over and over again.  Dorian cursed and stood unsteadily when he realized that the person wasn't going away.  He brought his drink with him as he hurried through the house, bare footed, but at least he wasn't still in his sleeping clothes-- partially because he hadn't slept in a while, bouncing back and forth between alcohol and magical stimulants to help him get everything done in the short amount of time he had before his eviction.

 

Dorian didn’t even think to check the peep hole before he swung open the door and snapped, "Maker, let off the fucking bell!" at a seven foot tall, heavily tattooed and massively stacked Qunari, followed by a distressed, "oh,  _fuck_   _me_."

 

"Well, I'm not your 'Maker,' but I  _can_  do that," the Iron Bull grinned at Dorian, and the mage sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes with one weary hand.  

 

"No, no, I was..." Dorian sighed heavily and leaned against the door.  "I forgot to call you, didn't I?" he asked, feeling a sudden exhaustion as he deflated from his previous anger.

 

The Iron Bull laughed a little and shifted the case of beer he was holding from his right hand to his left before leaning his shoulder on the door jamb and looking Dorian over. 

 

He knew his hair was mussed, and the last time he had shaved was 4am.  Dorian’s jaw itched nervously, but he just rubbed his hand through his hair and let it drop back to his side pathetically.  

 

"I'm glad that's what it was and I didn't piss you off or anything.

 

“I brought the beer as an apology," the Iron Bull said after a long silent moment while he waited for Dorian to speak.  He hefted it and the bottles clinked together.  It was a large case, and on any other occasion, Dorian would have had a smart aleck response to the bulge of the Iron Bull’s bicep, but all he felt capable of was stepping to the side and allowing the massive man into his former home.

 

“Like what you’ve done with the place,” the Iron Bull commented, casting an eye around at the few packed boxes lining the entry hall.

 

“I’m moving,” Dorian offered in explanation.  He held out a hand for the beer, but the Iron Bull shook his head and headed for the short hallway to the dining room himself. 

 

“Wouldn’t want you to have to set down your,” he sniffed, “brandy?  Didn’t take you for the type.”

 

“There are probably many things that you wouldn’t take me for,” Dorian commented, following the Iron Bull.  He was torn on whether he appreciated the distraction or cursed it.  He had  _things_  to  _do_.

 

“Not as many as you’d think.”

 

Dorian could  _hear_  the wink in the Iron Bull’s voice, though all he could see was the tightly stretched t-shirt across his back.  It fit him like an unwieldy glove.  

 

Dorian sighed theatrically before draining the last of his brandy and setting the glass in the sink.  “I’m sorry I neglected to call you, but I don’t think I’ll be able to take you out on that dinner date for a while,” Dorian admitted, watching the Iron Bull load his fridge with beer bottles.  His pride positively  _ached_  when the Iron Bull gave him a curious look.

 

“That’s fine.  You in a bind or something?” he asked, grabbing a warm beer and popping the top.  He didn’t take his eye from Dorian throughout the motion.

 

Dorian quickly shook his head.

 

The Iron Bull didn’t look convinced.

 

“Tell you what, how about you  _make_  me dinner and we’ll call it even,” the Iron Bull offered.  He took a long draught from the warm beer.  It made Dorian curl his lip.

 

“Make…?  I don’t have the kind of ingredients for a  _proper_ —“

 

“Oh, come on.  You’ve got the chicken and stuff for  _pullum frontonianum_  in your fridge and the rolls up top are probably  _mustacei,_   right?” the Iron Bull insisted, swinging his beer back and forth between his knuckles idly like a pendulum.

 

“I…” Dorian went over the ingredients he would need and what he had in his fridge.  “You're quite knowledgeable about Tevinter cuisine," he said, crossing his arms and suddenly finding himself uncomfortable with the Iron Bull’s presence.  The possibility of him being from the northern islands rather than born in southern Thedas made Dorian antsy.

 

“I was there for a bit.  Nice place.  Not fond of the slavery, but—“

 

“It’s not slavery anymore," Dorian said.  It was a kneejerk response that made the Iron Bull laugh loudly.  Dorian felt the back of his neck burn. 

 

“Slavery is where some people are completely under the domination of some other people, Dorian,” the Iron Bull said firmly.  

 

In an instant, his voice lightened to what Dorian was used to, and he relaxed slightly.  “But I’m not here for a sociological discussion.  Tell me to leave and I’ll forget the date.”  He stepped closer to Dorian and raised his hand to gently push Dorian’s arms down so that he was no longer being outwardly defensive.  “Or you can make me some kick ass ‘Vint food and we can see where the night takes us.”

 

Dorian swallowed and stared up at the Iron Bull’s eye.  His first instinct had been right.  The man was dangerous.  Strong and, now that he realized it,  _smart,_  too.  What had lulled him into complacency?  What had caused Dorian to let his guard down and fall asleep in this man’s presence? Why had he let himself be so vulnerable?

 

His eyes dropped to the Iron Bull’s strong, unshaven jaw and followed his tattooed neck down to his broad shoulders and chest.  His arms looked like they were ready to split his t-shirt’s sleeves, and his jeans fit his thighs attractively, though they weren’t so tight as to strangle his hips and crotch.

 

Dorian felt a twist in his gut and returned his eyes to the Iron Bull’s eye once again.  “Well, you  _did_  wear non-tropical themed clothing this time.”

 

“Yep.  T-shirts are a bitch to get on, by the way.”

 

“Is that because of the horns or the muscles?” Dorian smiled and finally felt the tension really beginning to melt from him.  He slipped his left hand up his right arm to give the Iron Bull’s massive hand a squeeze of silent thanks for changing the subject.

 

“A little of both,” the Iron Bull admitted.  His hand closed around Dorian’s, engulfing it.

 

The moment suddenly felt too close, too amative and tender, so Dorian slipped his hand away, clearing his throat.  “Let me go clean up a bit and I’ll get started on dinner,” Dorian said before heading for his room.  This was going to put him behind on his packing plan, but having good food and decent company trumped sitting alone in his room, folding robes and drinking by himself.

 

When Dorian returned to the kitchen, shaved, moustache waxed and hair still damp but combed into place, he saw a pot on the stove already and the Iron Bull carefully stirring whatever was inside. 

 

"You got started without me," Dorian accused as he crossed the hardwood of the dining room to reach the kitchen tile.

 

"I prefer the grape reduction chilled.  Figured I could help out with the cooking a little if you tell me what you need," the Iron Bull told Dorian, flashing him a smile.

 

Dorian smiled in return and moved to the fridge to dig out the items he would need as well as his favorite red wine to add to what the Iron Bull was tending to on the stove.  "It seems like you already know what I need…” he murmured, bumping the Iron Bull with his hip as he came to put his armload on the counter next to the stove.  “Go ahead and add about a cup and a half of this."

 

"Mind if I try a sip?" The Iron Bull asked, still stirring with one hand as he took the wine bottle with the other.

 

"Just a sip," Dorian replied seriously, uncorking the bottle for the Iron Bull and returning to the fridge.  "That's hard to find at a reasonable price."

 

"Hmmm... Tevinter  _vint_ age?" The Iron Bull asked after taking a sip straight from the bottle.

 

Dorian looked up over the door of the fridge to see his guest pouring the wine into the pot, stirring as he went and smiling to himself.  "You're a  _terrible, terrible_ man," he told the Iron Bull, trying to sound suitably disgusted with the pun.  "Besides, it's Antivan."

 

The Iron Bull grinned wider and he eyed Dorian out of the corner of his good eye.  "Oh, you think that's bad, you just wait. I  _Antivan_ started yet."

 

"How on earth did you hide this from me before? If only I had known you were this defected.  I would never have expressed an interest in you."  Dorian returned to the fridge and stacked his arms with ingredients before straightening again and kicking it closed.

 

"That's why I held back," the Iron Bull told him, setting the wine bottle down and shoving the cork back in.  "Afraid you'd be too intimidated by my intelligence and wit to agree to a date."

 

Dorian scoffed and washed his hands before beginning to prepare the chicken with spices.  "You? Too smart for me?" Dorian scoffed again and then shook his head and scoffed one more time.

 

"Ow.  That hurt, Dorian.  It hurt me right here." The Iron Bull put his hand on the left side of his chest.  "Or is it the other side? I forget."  He moved his hand back and forth, as if feeling for his heart beat before shrugging and dropping his hand.

 

Dorian laughed and pulled out a skillet, moving to stand beside the Iron Bull once again.  "I'm certain you know which it is.  You seem like the kind of man who knows his way around anatomy."

 

"Eh, I usually don't have to worry about it."

 

"What? No, 'my expertise is a little farther down?' " Dorian asked, smirking a little as he leaned on the counter, waiting for the skillet to heat.

 

"If that was all I knew how to do, we'd both be bored pretty quickly."  The Iron Bull sounded amused, though his attention stayed on the boiling grape and wine concoction he was still stirring.

 

"That sounds... Intriguing," Dorian finally admitted.  His patience ran out quickly, and he put some olive oil on his fingers to draw a heat rune on the bottom of the skillet.  The metal heated quickly, and it began to smoke slightly.  

 

Dorian smiled.  Magic was truely the Maker's gift to mankind.  He grabbed the chicken and carefully flayed the two breasts before laying them down in the pan to sizzle for a bit.

 

"Play your cards right tonight and you might find out what I mean," the Iron Bull promised.

 

Dorian smiled at his chickens and flipped them to the other side with a pair of tongs.  "Tonight might not be the best, to be honest.  I still have a lot of packing to do and I'm looking at apartments again tomorrow..." He found that he was genuinely diappointed.  No matter how dangerous or crazy he thought the Iron Bull to be, he was very attracted to the man. He was actually interesting rather than  _just_  aesthetically pleasing-- not the normal good looking noble's cousin, or otherwise handsome soporati he usually went for.

 

"If you need help with packing, I could give you a hand.  Or six, probably," The Iron Bull tacked on, rolling his eye up to the ceiling thoughtfully.

 

"Oh, look at you, standing there with your rippling muscles, coming to my rescue."  Dorian smiled and transferred the chicken to a pan to put in the oven.  "This will be about an hour and a half."  He turned to see the Iron Bull staring at him.  

 

"I'm serious," the Iron Bull told him.  "Are you already renting a moving van?"

 

Dorian sighed and turned back to the counter, hoping that he could eventually divert the conversation away from his move again.  He didn't need to owe the Iron Bull anything more than he already did.  "Reduce that to a simmer and come help me with the asparagus."

 

Dorian washed the asparagus as he waited for the Iron Bull to join him.

 

The Iron Bull was a massive, silent presence to his right as Dorian attempted to resist brooding and go back to their easy banter.  It was hard, since he was still feeling the lightest of buzzes from his earlier brandies, but it helped that the Iron Bull wasn't continuing to push the issue.  When Dorian turned to hand the Iron Bull the asparagus spears, he found a cold beer already open and being traded for the bunch of vegetables.

 

"How about you stand there," the Iron Bull pointed to a spot, "look pretty and drink that while telling me what to do," the Iron Bull suggested with a smile that looked too gentle.

 

Dorian felt heat climb up his neck.  "Stop looking at me like that.  I am not some wounded animal," he snapped before taking a draught of the beer.  Well, he had at least  _tried_  to avoid brooding.  "Just fix the asparagus," he demanded, when the Iron Bull just stood there patiently and waited for him to do as he had suggested.

 

"Tell me how, Dorian," the Iron Bull's voice was more firm—less belittlingly gentle—and Dorian took a deep breath to regain control of his emotions.

 

 

He drained the rest of the beer and fetched another one before leaning against the corner of the fridge with his arms crossed.  He cleared his throat before instructing the Iron Bull, "cut the light ends off the stalks and slather what you have left with olive oil."  He waited patiently while the Iron Bull did as he was told.  "Good, now put them on the baking sheet.  Spread them out in a single layer. Liberally crack pepper and salt over them.  More.  Good."  He made his second beer last, and had the Iron Bull slivering almonds when he went for another.

 

He pulled out two and waited until the prepared asparagus was set aside and the Iron Bull had wiped his hand clean of olive oil to hand one to him.  "I'm sorry," he offered when silence lay thick between them.

 

The Iron Bull rubbed his stubble and shrugged.  "Listen, I didn't pick a good time.  I probably should have left when you said you forgot to call me and waited until you didn't have so much on your hands."

 

Dorian nodded reluctantly, but he didn't actually  _want_  that to have happened.  

 

Would it have been easier on his time management to sit and fold and drink brandy until he couldn't tell the top of his robes from the bottom?  Probably.  

 

But when was the last time he had eaten or slept?

 

If the Iron Bull hadn't shown up, he would have fallen asleep an inebriated wreck in the midst of his clothing with only brandy in his belly.  It wasn't healthy, but it was  _easy_.

 

Then, he would have had to live with those choices the next day and no proprietor wanted a drowsy, hung over tenant in their building.

 

"I just... Don't know why you would want to help me," Dorian admitted, shaking his head.  "I'm a Tevinter mage whose father tried to kill you not a week ago.  I forgot to call you after demanding that  _you_  ask  _me_  out..." He raised his free hand to his temple and made an exploding motion outward.  "I'm currently a complete mess, I mean...  _Vashate kaffas!_

 

 _"Bull_ , what do you  _want_ from me?"

 

"Right this moment?" the Iron Bull asked, setting his beer down on the counter and spinning it idly with the tips of his fingers.

 

Dorian gave an exagerated nod. 

 

He looked back up at Dorian, his expression a mask of indifference.  "Absolutely nothing." 

 

Dorian's heart fell a little.

 

Bull’s expression softened, and he took a step forward, leaving his beer on the counter.  "I want you to decide what you want.  I  _can_ help you.  I  _can_  have my guys pack up your shit and load it into my truck.  I  _can_  stay for dinner and,  _if you want_ , after.   _Whatever_  that means to  _you_."  The Iron Bull shrugged his massive shoulders and stepped forward until he was right in front of Dorian.  "I'm pretty flexible," he said with a crooked quirk of his lips.

 

"I bet you are..." Dorian swallowed, staring up at the Iron Bull with his back against the fridge.

 

" _So_ , what do  _you_  want, Dorian?"  The Iron Bull asked, going no further than he already had. 

 

Dorian considered the question for a long time.  It was the first time he had been asked to make a choice since he was very young.  His parents had started making assumptions and choosing his life for him years ago.  Then, when he had left, he had been so used to forcing what he wanted that it carried over into his social life.  He strong-armed dinner, movie choices or prioritized work over the wants and needs of his lovers and it had only driven them away, so he had given up for a while.  His work was more important than getting laid, anyway.

 

"I'll have to think about the moving help... But I  _would_  like for you to stay after dinner," Dorian said finally, licking his lips nervously.

 

"Alright, sounds like a plan," the Iron Bull smirked and leaned in closer so that Dorian could smell the heavy scent of a lightly applied, musky cologne.  "Is there anything else?" 

 

"Not right now," Dorian told him, his eyes focused on the scar bisecting the right side of the Iron Bull's lips.  "The reduction is probably ready for the fridge," he said as a cheeky reminder to cut through the tension.  He was expecting the Iron Bull to press him against the refrigerator and kiss him senseless.  He  _wanted_ it.

 

"Probably," the Iron Bull agreed before pulling away and turning the burner off from under the hot concoction.  He put it on a pot holder and walked past Dorian to put it in the refrigerator carefully.  He smirked at Dorian's disappointed look when he turned back to the flustered mage.

 

"Sorry, was there something else you wanted?" he asked.

 

"No, nothing at all," Dorian shook his head before setting the oven timer for an hour.  

 

The Iron Bull laughed and watched Dorian walk out of the kitchen and back into the living room.

 

When he followed, it was with several cold beers.  Dorian sat on the couch, flipping channels.

 

"Your pride is cute," the Iron Bull commented, sitting beside him and setting his array of beers on the coffee table.

 

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dorian said dryly as the Iron Bull rested his arm across the back of the couch, his massive forearm brushing against the back of Dorian's hair.

 

"Oh?" The Iron Bull's breath ghosted across Dorian's ear before he pressed his face to Dorian's hair and breathed in.  "You sure?  I'm pretty sure pride smells like thirty dollar hair product," he moved down to nuzzle behind his ear, "and expensive cologne."  He shifted down further to press his lips to Dorian's neck and the mage accidentally hit the mute button on the remote.

 

The Iron Bull chuckled at Dorian and kissed his way down to the juncture of Dorian's neck and shoulder.

 

Dorian felt the wet press of the Iron Bull's tongue.  He sighed in what he hoped sounded like exasperation rather than relaxed pleasure and leaned his head away to allow the Iron Bull more access.

 

Large arms wrapped around him and manipulated Dorian until he was lying on the couch beneath the Iron Bull.  His hands were fisted in the Iron Bull's t-shirt--

 

"You okay, Dorian?" the Iron Bull asked.

 

Dorian turned his head quickly to see the Iron Bull still sitting back against the couch.  Dorian was still sitting as well, and he was definitely not beneath the Qunari.

 

"Did you just smell my hair?" Dorian asked, unsure what all had just actually happened.  

 

"Yeah, was that too weird?" the Iron Bull asked, raising a brow.

 

"Ah... No, it's fine.  I think I'm starting to hallucinate a bit from... Well, lots of things, actually."  Dorian laughed and shook his head.

 

The Iron Bull took the remote from Dorian and scooted closer to him.  He brought his arm down to rest around his shoulders and pulled him gently into his side, reminiscent of the last time they had sat on Dorian's couch.  "Take a nap or something.  I don't want you to freak out on me or anything,” he told Dorian as he switched the tv to have subtitles.

 

Dorian laughed softly, but relaxed into the hold.  "You mean you don't want me to get possessed or something ridiculous like that."

 

The Iron Bull didn't hesitate to reply with a "yeah, _that_."

 

Dorian chuckled and shook his head.  "Ridiculous," he repeated before settling in and slowly drifting off to sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner and a kiss.

Dorian awoke when he heard the oven timer going off.  

 

He blinked blearily at the ceiling, unsure when he had fallen asleep exactly or why the oven timer was going off in the first place. 

 

Maybe it was his smoke alarm instead.  How novel.  Thedas’s leading innovator in technical combustion magic dying in a fire of all things.  The Maker had a strong sense of irony indeed.

 

The beeping suddenly stopped as Dorian raised his hand to send a pulse of frost through his apartment.  Dorian stopped the magic just as it left his hand and frowned.  He smelled for smoke, but instead inhaled the scent that had perforated his family's kitchens at least once a week.  Wine mingling with broth, the unmistakable earthy undercurrent of leek and dill and the zesty tang of coriander.   Dorian took a deep, nostalgic breath and his stomach rudely reminded him that it was empty with a sharp pang of hunger.  He shook the melted ice crystals from his hand and was beginning to sit up when he suddenly remembered that there was meat in the oven, asparagus prepped to go in, and he had an enormous amount of packing left to do. 

 

His father was kicking him out again.  He still needed to find an apartment.

 

Dorian sighed and let his back hit the couch once again.  He briefly wondered if he would prefer dying in a fire to having to deal with all of this bullshit with his family.  He had almost decided on a "probably," when the Iron Bull suddenly loomed over the back of the couch.

 

"Sorry, didn't get there fast enough to catch it before the timer went off," he said, folding his arms across the back of the couch and leaning on it.

 

"The asparagus needs to go in," Dorian said, finally making up his mind that this, right now, was worth not being dead for the time being.  He sighed and sat up again, rubbing the back of his neck.

 

"Actually, it's done and so is the chicken.  I have the bread warming right now, so it won't be too long before everything's ready."  The Iron Bull reached a hand over to rub just below where Dorian's hand was.  He pressed his thumb into a knot, making Dorian gasp, drop his hand away and clench his eyes shut.  

 

"You're wound up tighter than a fucking spring, you know that?"  The Iron Bull frowned and ran his hand across Dorian's shoulder, then rubbed the heel of his palm across his upper back.

 

"I had an inkling, but thank you for pulling it all together for me."  Dorian stood and straightened his clothing, only a little embarrassed that he kept falling asleep on the Iron Bull.  The man was a warm, comfortable, exceptionally firm pillow.

 

The Iron Bull chuckled and retreated to the dining room and kitchen.  

 

Dorian followed him reluctantly, knowing that he was going to regret wasting all of this time later on.  Food and social interaction weren't  _really_  that important to having a functional and happy life.  

 

There were two glasses and an open bottle of wine sitting on the dining table.  Now   _that_  was something important for at least a happy life.  He poured himself a glass and took a greedy sip before he realized that the Iron Bull was in the kitchen, making plates for them.  

 

Dorian poured the Iron Bull a glass as well and entered the kitchen bearing both glasses with a smile.

 

"Figures you would go for the wine first," the Iron Bull smirked and reached for the offered glass.

 

"Hey, now!" Dorian withdrew his hand and tutted with a frown.  "Was that   _really_ necessary?" he asked, holding both glasses close as the Iron Bull advanced on him with a mischievous grin.

 

"Probably not, but it was worth the look on your face," he told Dorian, suddenly taking a much longer stride than he had been and backing Dorian into the pantry door.  "Careful, or you might spill wine on your pretty shirt.  Or worse, Daddy's carpet."

 

Dorian rolled his eyes, squared his shoulders and puffed out his chest.  He wasn't a small man, by any means, but the Iron Bull was just so  _massive_  that he couldn't help  _trying_  to regain a little dignity.

 

The, "cute," that the Iron Bull huffed out between grin-stretched lips was just hurtful, quite frankly.

 

Dorian looked down at the glasses in his hands and then tossed one into the dining room.  Red wine made a long, branching stain on the light beige carpet, and Dorian turned back to look up at the Iron Bull smugly.  "Oh, no! Daddy's carpet," he said, mockingly sweet, before taking a sip of his own wine.

 

The Iron Bull didn't retreat with a good-natured laugh and continue to prepare their dinners like Dorian had expected, but instead stepped closer.  His chest was a breath away from Dorian’s chin, and his feet slotted in between Dorian’s, his hips canted to the side to prevent the mage from slipping away through the dining room.  His hand came up to take Dorian's glass from his lax fingers, and Dorian stared numbly up into the Iron Bull's eye, his heart pounding and his fingers aching to grab the man's too-tight t-shirt and… Maker, he didn’t really know, but he wanted to do it.

 

The Iron Bull drew back to take a sip of Dorian's wine and then turned away to continue making them plates.  "You're probably going to get an ass-load for that, you know."

 

"As long as I get one from you, I'm fine," Dorian said before he could stop himself.

 

The Iron Bull laughed until he had to set the glass of wine down.  

 

Dorian wasn't sure if he should feel more or less self-conscious.  He usually had no problem with progressively wanton flirting, but the Iron Bull didn’t react the same way as other men.  They smiled and said something just as suggestive back, or flushed and attempted to act coy about it all.  The Iron Bull treated Dorian like he was a particularly entertaining cartoon, like the things that he said didn’t require immediate attention, just a quip back and then he could move on.

 

"Fuck, that was a good one.  Wasn't expecting that from you," the Iron Bull admitted, wiping his eye and shaking his head.

 

"Well, it wasn't  _entirely_ jest," Dorian admitted, pursing his lips and crossing his arms.

 

"Good," was all the Iron Bull said in return.

 

"I... Okay...?" Dorian was at a complete loss as to what would happen next, but he figured that that meant  _something_ would happen. 

 

 _Eventually_.

 

He moved to pick up the spilled wine glass and poured himself another, downed it and then returned to the kitchen after setting down the empty glass.

 

"Do you need any help?"  Dorian asked, crossing his arms and then uncrossing them when he realized that the Iron Bull would recognize it as insecure body language again.  He told himself that he was anything  _but_ uncertain.  Maybe he just felt strange asking if someone else needed help in his own kitchen.

 

The Iron Bull looked up from making a thin layer of chilled grape reduction on the bottom of the second plate and nodded.  "Sure, grab the rolls out of the oven."  He put the remaining chicken breast on the plate and then used tongs to drop asparagus onto it as well.

 

Dorian took the oven mitt and got the rolls out.  He put one on each plate before setting the pan down on the stove and surveying their meal with a sense of pride.  He picked up the plate closest to him and turned to return to dining room as the Iron Bull balanced his glass and plate in one hand, strangely enough.

 

It was only strange until he gave Dorian's ass a smack on his way past.

 

Dorian made a surprised noise and was just glad he didn't drop his plate.  Heat climbed up his neck and he could feel it in his cheeks as he followed the Iron Bull, a swell of new confidence blooming despite his flush. 

 

He was most probably getting laid.

 

"Smells great, 'Vint,” the Iron Bull told Dorian, sitting down rather gently on Dorian’s dining chair and reaching for the bottle of wine across the table.  He refilled Dorian’s glass for him before topping himself off and setting it back down on the table.

 

“It was one of my favorite meals as a child,” Dorian admitted, swirling his wine ‘round his glass before taking a sip and sighing as he reveled in the smells of his youth.  Simpler times.  Before his wild streak, before his parents tried to tie him down, before Alexius and Felix, before his father tried to change him…

 

Dorian took another, larger sip.

 

“We don’t use spices much in Qunari cuisine.  This reminds me of meals my Tama used to make,” the Iron Bull told Dorian, cutting into the tender meat and making sure to get a light coat of the reduction before he put it in his mouth.  He gave an appreciative hum, then chewed and swallowed before continuing to speak as he cut the rest of his meal up, “Orlesians use a bunch of spices on everything, it’s like they want to hide all the natural flavor of the meat with fancy this or pepper crusted that.” 

 

Dorian made a depreciating noise in the back of his throat at almost the same time as the Iron Bull.  They shared a smile, and Dorian chased his bite of chicken with a sip of wine before clearing his throat.  “So… you’re originally from the islands, I take it?” he asked.

 

“Yep.  I was raised in Par Vollen, then transferred to Seheron a few years after I started working with the Ben-Hassrath to deal with all of the crap going on over there,” the Iron Bull rolled his eyes.

 

Dorian knew of Par Vollen, and he had heard of Seheron, of course, but he had no idea about the political state of the Qunari islands, or what the Ben-Hassrath was.  The Iron Bull seemed to be a fairly open sort, so he figured that asking wouldn’t hurt.  “I used to hear about Seheron on the news in Tevinter sometimes, but I never really heard about what was going on there.  Is it politically astringent to Par Vollen?”

 

The Iron Bull stared at Dorian long enough for the mage to feel like he had asked or done something wrong, then his face softened and he leaned forward slightly.  “You don’t know anything about Qunari aside from what you’ve been fed through Tevinter media channels, do you?”

 

“I…” Dorian was not afraid to admit that he could be ignorant on certain topics, but the way that the Iron Bull asked the question was similar to how Dorian heard the more vehement topics about mage rights come up in conversation.  “I have a few pupils in the Spire who are Qunari, but otherwise, you’re right.”

 

“Doesn’t count,” the Iron Bull shook his head, and his soft chuckle was tolerant. 

 

Dorian watched the Iron Bull continue eating, without any hint that he was going to continue the conversation.  He considered offering, but stopped himself.  This already felt so personal, cooking and eating together, the Iron Bull allowing him to fall asleep on him twice, the Iron Bull actively pursuing the date rather than allowing Dorian to stick to the pattern that he had developed over the past few years of hooking up and then never seeing each other again.

 

For the first time in his life, rather than following his curiosity, Dorian let the subject lie.

 

Instead, he pressed on with what he did know, with something far less personal for both of them:

 

“So, what were you doing in that park, anyway?”

 

"Yoga," the Iron Bull said, without a hint of joke in his voice.

 

"You were... Doing  _yoga_?" Dorian asked, raising a brow.  He vaguely remembered the Iron Bull mentioning to Krem that two of their acquaintances were still at the park when they got lunch.

 

The Iron Bull smiled at the question and continued to eat while he spoke.  “One of my friends is into the whole yoga craze that’s going around, and she started asking if I wanted to come with her last month.  I’m usually too busy, and I get enough of a workout at the gym."  The Iron Bull paused to casually flex his torso and arms.  

 

Dorian was sure that the t-shirt was about to come apart at the seams.   

 

"Anyway, I finished up my latest contract and decided to actually go with her.  It was fun at first, actually reminded me a lot of the stretches and breathing exercises we did in Par Vollen, then things got too complicated for me to work around my horns, and I gave up after I ended up on my ass twice."  The Iron Bull laughed at his own expense and Dorian couldn't help chuckling at the thought of the Iron Bull doing yoga in the midst of a collection of elves and humans in the park.

 

"Well, I'm glad you picked that day to accept," Dorian told him.

 

The Iron Bull just scooped his last bite of chicken into his mouth with a grin.

 

They cleaned up together, though Dorian assured the Iron Bull that he could put everything up himself.  He had insisted, though, since Dorian had gone out of his way for him.

 

Dorian relented to letting the Iron Bull wash the dishes while he boxed the extra food and wiped down the stove and countertops.

 

By the time they were finished, Dorian was yawning again, but he was determined to continue the date.  He still had a little of the potion he used to stay awake for long jaunts of studying and was considering taking a dose when the Iron Bull rested his hand on Dorian's shoulder and pulled him into his side with a grin down at him.

 

"Thanks for dinner, Dorian," he said.

 

"You make it sound like you're leaving already," Dorian told him, leaning into his side and trying to turn his tired, half-lidded look into something more sultry.

 

"I should," the Iron Bull told him, beginning to direct Dorian toward the hallway that lead to his bedroom.

 

Dorian pouted and stopped walking.  The Iron Bull stopped with him.

 

"I don't want you to," he told the Iron Bull.  

 

The Iron Bull suddenly crowded Dorian into the wall of the hallway, trapping him on both sides with the weight of his close presence.  It was stifling, but also thrilling at the same time, to have his space invaded.

 

The Iron Bull brought his hand up to hover just shy of touching Dorian's cheek.  He could feel the heat of his thumb.

 

Dorian tilted his head to the side to finish the contact, and reached for the Iron Bull's wrist so that he wouldn't try to pull away.

 

"You  _are_  planning on having sex with me at some point, aren't you? I mean... Maker, I've never met anyone who flirted as well as I do," he admitted with a soft laugh.  "And you keep looking at me and saying things, but--" Dorian cut himself off in a yawn and pulled away from the Iron Bull to cover it with a hand.  He was going to continue when he had finished, but the Iron Bull didn't give him the chance.

 

"Dorian, shut up," the Iron Bull told him and continued to escort Dorian to his room. "If we're going to fuck, I don't want you falling asleep on me halfway in because you haven't slept in a week, or lasting a single round because you haven't eaten a proper meal." 

 

"There are  _rounds?"_  Dorian asked, trying to feel aghast instead of intensely curious.  Also trying to feel cared for rather than mortified that what the Iron Bull was saying had more than a modicum of truth to it.

 

The Iron Bull just grinned at him and gave him that rakish wink as he opened Dorian's door with the hand not steering the mage around.  "Whatever's got you freaking out and treating yourself like your health doesn't matter won't last as long as I'm around.  Eat at least two meals a day, sleep instead of using magic to stay up.  Be dressed up and waiting for me to pick you up on Friday night, and we'll see about the sex."

 

"Friday night, eh?"  Dorian was going to navigate the boxes he had started for his robes, but instead, the Iron Bull easily moved them aside with his right foot.

 

"I suppose I'll have to monopolize on that moving help, if I'm to have two dates within a week while trying to move all at once."

 

The Iron Bull grinned and gently pushed Dorian toward the bed.  "Glad you've come to see things my way."

 

Dorian cheekily shimmied out of his jeans, but the Iron Bull merely watched with interest rather than show temptation.

"Text me tomorrow when you decide on an apartment and when you'll be home.  We work pretty quick, so it should only take a few days to pack and move everything."

 

"How terribly attractive, talking shop before you leave instead of kissing me," Dorian scoffed as he climbed in and settled himself into his bed.

 

The Iron Bull smirked and before Dorian could react, the Iron Bull dragged him up into a kiss with a hand cradling the back of his head.

 

Searing was a boring, over used trope of a word for kisses that stole one's breath and made one's entire body flush from the toes up.  Despite this, the kiss was searing.  It summoned heat from every crevice of Dorian and flushed him, made his knees weak, though they weren't supporting him, and his hands clutched at the Iron Bull of their own accord.

 

He found himself hoping that he would never come up for air.

 

When the Iron Bull did break the kiss, Dorian felt emotions well within him that had no place in a friendly hookup situation: 

 

Dismay at the cessation.

 

Possessiveness curled his fingers tighter into the Iron Bull's shirt.

 

Hot, biting need like he hadn't felt in years roiled in his belly.

 

Dorian didn't bother resisting, though every fiber of him told him that this was wrong.  This couldn't and shouldn't be.  

 

He barely knew the Iron Bull.  They had known each other for scarcely a week, but that didn't stop one of Dorian's hands from reaching up to wrap around one of the Iron Bull's horns and tugging him back down into another kiss.

 

The Iron Bull didn't resist.  His lips curled against Dorian's, and a chuckle rumbled from his chest.  Thick, strong arms wrapped around Dorian, and the Iron Bull gently laid him back on the bed again.  He let Dorian control this kiss, allowed him to nip and suck at his bottom lip without retribution, responded to his tongue with the pliable, careful slip of his own until Dorian's tongue retreated and his lips parted from the Iron Bull's for air, leaving him panting dizzily against the Qunari's own spit-slick lips.

 

"Goodnight," the Iron Bull rumbled softly, teasing Dorian with one last drag of his lips against the mage's own.

 

Dorian let the Iron Bull slip away, wondering at the limpness of his arms.  The Iron Bull's lips took his breath from him and all he could want was more.  

 

Passion, fire,  _heat_  was something he had always enjoyed in a chematic kiss, but now he felt like he could be swallowed whole in an instant.  He hadn't thought of anything but the Iron Bull's lips against his own, couldn't be assed to worry about his deadline, the apartments he had to view, how he was going to get his stuff out and across Val Royeaux.

 

All that mattered in that moment had been the Iron Bull, his lips, and the firm arms wrapped around Dorian.

 

"Goodnight," Dorian said as he watched the Iron Bull leave him.

 

 _Friday_.  Friday was taking too long to get there.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian finds an apartment, goes to work and then meets the Chargers when he returns home.

It  _had_   to be one of these two apartments.       

 

He had passed on all the others already, finding faults with every single one of them and he was running out of time.  One was too far from the Spire, and he had to pass through a miserable part of the city to get to it economically.  Another was nice enough with a beautiful view, but there was no way he wanted to climb four flights of stairs after a long day of lecturing.

 

So it would have to be "small with a waterfront view," or "large livingspace with character."

 

"Large livingspace with character" was promising until Dorian saw how much character was involved.  Two of the walls were missing sizable chunks, and the wooden floors looked like someone had started sanding them to replace the varnish and stopped just after half the work was done.  The bedroom was large, but the bathroom pipes were bared by yet more missing plaster, and the landlord informed him that the hot water was "tricky until you get used to it."

 

Altogether, he thanked the man for his time and went to "small with a waterfront view" with low hopes.

 

They plummeted further when he found out that the "water front view" was, in fact, a small balcony that overlooked one of the smaller docks.  Once Dorian got over the smell of fish and petrol, though, he acknowledged that the balcony was rather charming, and large enough that he could put a patio set out for a nice little breakfast nook.

 

The large windows let a copious amount of light into the apartment, and it wasn't quite as hole-in-the-wall as another that Dorian had looked at a few days prior.  It was, however, a single room with a small full bath off to the side.  He could probably put up a divider around his bed to give the illusion of a bedroom.

 

"I'll take it," Dorian said reluctantly as he checked his phone for the time.  He had to be at the Spire shortly, but he could probably grab a coffee beforehand.

 

"Are you sure?" The landlord asked.

 

Dorian sighed and waved his hand at him.  "I'll have the down payment and deductible for you this evening.  I have three days to be out of my old place and this is the most fitting apartment I've seen in the past two weeks."  Dorian looked around the apartment again and decided that he would need to do a lot of dusting before he settled in.

 

"I'll take it," he repeated, warming to the place a little more.  It was going to have to do, he may as well accept it.  He was already mentally hanging his crushed velvet curtains to frame the balcony doors.

 

"Alright, I'll have the paperwork ready for you when you drop off the money," the landlord interrupted Dorian's interior design planning.

 

"Of course, thank you for the tour."  Dorian gave the man a polite smile and shook his hand before finally leaving for the Spire.

 

Dorian didn’t think to call the Iron Bull until he had already been waiting in line for four minutes at a coffee shop.

 

"What color are your underwear?" greeted him when the line was picked up.

 

"Is that how you answer all your calls?" Dorian asked, feeling heat creep up his neck.

 

"Oh, hey!”  Dorian heard shuffling from the other end of the line and the Iron Bull chuckling.  “Only the ones from unknown numbers."

 

"That sounds like a sound business practice," Dorian remarked.

 

Iron Bull chuckled.  "I'm just like every other business man; I have a work phone and a play phone."

 

Dorian smiled and crossed his free arm to cup the elbow of his phone hand as the line moved forward.  "I found an apartment.  I said I would let you know," he added when silence hung on the line.

 

"Text me the address sometime today."  There was more shuffling on the other side accompanied by the Iron Bull's breathing. "When will you be home?"  He asked finally, when things settled down on his end.

 

"Around six," Dorian told him.

 

"Huh, kinda late.  We could get started earlier with your permission."

 

"My permission?  You mean a key?"

 

"If that makes you happy."

 

"...  This sounds more and more like a bad idea."

 

"Eh, I have a guy.  We don't do breaking and entering, we just open doors without keys."

 

"Uh... Huh..." Dorian looked up to see that he was next in line.  "Do what you must, but leave the library for me.  I have to pick what I need to take."

 

"Alright," the Iron Bull replied.  Dorian could hear the smile in his voice.

 

"Stop that," he snapped as the person in front of him finished their order.

 

"No clue what you're talking about."

 

Dorian rolled his eyes as he stepped up and gave the cashier a small smile with a "one moment please," finger.

 

"I'll see you this evening."

 

"Bring lots of pizza."

 

Dorian chuckled and agreed.  "Yes, yes, pizza.  I have to go."

 

"Alright, see you later."

 

"Oh, the Iron Bull...?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"They're red."

 

"Red?"  He sounded confused, then chuckled.  Just as Dorian hung up, he heard a pleased, "nice."

 

Coffee and, when he remembered the Iron Bull's concern that he eat, a biscuit accompanied him to his first class.  

 

Dorian thought that it made him look rakishly casual and approachable to lean back on his desk and sip coffee between lecture points.  While mages asked questions, he hazarded a nibble on his biscuit before explaining his reasoning behind greater control theory, or confirming that, while distributing the area over which a spell has been cast can dampen its power, it can also allow the caster to redirect the ambient magic back into the center of the spell radius to create a similarly devastating effect as if it had been cast in full power.  Allowing the spell to cover a wider area allowed for less wasted energy that would have been put into concentrating it, and redirecting the residual magic took considerably less effort than condensing the magic in the first place.

 

"Also, it makes the other party wonder what in the Maker's name is happening on all sides of them."  Dorian smirked when he got a few chuckles.  "Now," he took a sip of his coffee and glanced at the notes lying near his hip.  Then, he pushed off of the desk and began pacing the front of the room leisurely.  "Who can tell me why concentrating a nullification too tightly is detrimental?"

 

Half of the hands in the lecture hall went up, and Dorian tapped his finger against his lip thoughtfully as he perused his choices.  

 

"Could it be that if the nullification is too concentrated that it will miss some of the spell and cause discord with what is left?"

 

"Why, yes it is." Dorian turned to face First Enchanter Vivienne and raised a brow at her interruption, though he didn't protest.  He knew better.

 

"Now, could one of my  _students_  tell me why that's a bad thing?"  Well, he didn't  _directly_  protest.  "Yes," he pointed to one of the less enthusiastically raised hands.  The young elf blushed and stood from her seat.

 

"Nullifying part of a spell could potentially endanger all involved even more so than if the initial spell had been allowed to run its course.  It's like taking part of the structure out of a foundation."

 

"That's exactly right!" Dorian nodded and set his coffee on his desk.  "And if the spell collapses on itself, what do you suppose happens to the fade in response, my dear?"

 

"It creates a violent reaction that attracts demons to the area.  If a mage is sufficiently weakened by the botched nullification and its reaction, he... Or she... May be more suceptible to possession."

 

"Well, someone reads her text," Dorian smiled encouragingly at the girl and motioned for her to resume sitting.  "If you'll excuse me for a moment, class, turn to page three hundred and twenty-four and practice your nullifications on figure A-7.  Keep track of your results on a paper."

 

Vivienne preceded Dorian through the door, and, rather than turn and begin the discussion outside the door, she began leading him down the hall silently.  

 

Dorian felt his gut twist, and wished that he had brought his coffee with him.  So far as defense mechanisms went, having something in his hands to focus on was high on his list.  Taking a sip of something also proved to ease his nerves, which were provoking a bout of nausea as their steps echoed through the empty corridor.

 

There were two seperate elevator systems in the spire, the ones made available to students and faculty were slim glass tubes set into the north and south walls of the building.  As the lifts rose, one could see all of Val Royeaux.  The glass was frosted at the edges to smooth the modern touch into the ages old stone, a touch that never failed to impress Dorian.  

 

In Tevinter, they simply didn't alter their architecture aside from restoring what was already there, and several decades ago, there was finally a push for new homes and business buildings to be built.  The modern complexes and houses clashed with the ancient stonework that had been there for millennia.  In an effort to preserve their heritage and expand at once, his home had made a grotesque hodgepodge in its busier cities that reflected how well modern social aspects fit into their noble archaic society. 

 

The second system was an elevator in the middle of the Spire itself.  It went from the ground all the way to the top most floor, and was only accessible by the First Enchanter herself.

 

Dorian followed Vivienne onto the lift when it opened with a wave of her hand, and made himself comfortable leaning on the railing while he watched Vivienne press the button for the top floor.  He braced himself for the slight alteration of his center of gravity before recovering and waiting for either the elevator to stop or Vivienne to speak.

 

The latter happened just as they passed the fifth floor.

 

"Dorian, darling, I had the most interesting conversation with your father this morning," Vivienne told him, finally glancing at him rather than stare at her own reflection in the polished interior of the doors.

 

Dorian took a breath and quirked the corner of his mouth up.  "Well, I can't imagine what he would have to say to  _you_ , Vivienne.  I thought the Tevinter Magisters were still attempting to tear down the Spire rather than have intelligent conversations with its Iron Lady."

 

Vivienne chuckled.  "Indeed.  But our conversation concerned you rather than the usual drivel about mages and ultimate power and..." She moved one delicate hand in a rolling motion and gave as world-weary a sigh as any woman who put on a constant front of being unthreatened by the world could.  “… so on and so forth…”

 

"Oh dear," Dorian fought the urge to swallow, kept his voice steady despite the cold dread climbing his spine.  "I do hope it wasn't a bother.  Father can be a bit of a busy bee at times."

 

"Yes, I know he has tended to...  _hover_  at your previous appointments."

 

Dorian snorted and nodded with a weary smile.  He altered his tone slightly to sound more concerned without letting his voice actually quiver.  "What exactly is this about, Vivienne?” he asked.  “Should I be worried?" he prompted as the elevator came to a halt.  He felt weightless for a moment before the momentum settled again, and the door opened into Vivienne's offices.  Her Tranquil secretary looked up at them as they disembarked, and Dorian wondered how she could work with someone so devoid of emotion and self.  It was creepy.

 

"Welcome back, Ms. Vivienne," the man said, his voice lacking warmth and made cold by his despondence.

 

"Thank you, Reginald," Vivienne flashed him a smile before leading Dorian to her office.  Reginald followed at a flick of her fingers.

 

Once the door had shut behind them, Vivienne crossed to  her desk and sat in her throne of an executive chair.  Reginald walked to the teapot she kept in the corner of her office, and poured two cups.  

 

"Tea?"  Vivienne asked.  

 

"With sugar, please.”  Dorian nodded, trying not to look at Reginald.  “No cream,” he added. 

 

Vivienne said nothing to Reginald about her own preferences as he fixed the cups.  Once he had dropped a small, delicate spoon into each cup, he brought them to Vivienne’s desk and stepped back to stand stoically by.  Vivienne smiled at Dorian and motioned to the two chairs sitting before her desk.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, Dorian.  Please, sit.”

 

Once Dorian had shifted his robes and sat in the chair, Reginald handed him his cup and left the room at another wordless flick of Vivienne’s hand.

 

Vivienne took a sip of her tea and studied Dorian silently before setting it on her desk and standing.  She rounded the desk and leaned her hip against it.  Dorian felt uncomfortable with the power dynamic, but his discomfort was eased slightly when Vivienne crossed her arms and stared down at him with an uncharacteristically soft look.

 

“Magister Pavus seemed unusually interested in your performance over the past few weeks,” Vivienne told Dorian.

 

Dorian hummed at the news and sipped his tea. 

 

"That sounds like him-- stubborn, meddlesome, ignorant."  Dorian took a sip of his tea to steady his creeping anxiety and returned his attention to Vivienne.  "Should I be worried?" he asked.

 

"I actually brought you here to talk about  _you_ , darling.  We talked briefly about your parental... Hm..."

 

"Problems?" Dorian asked, recognizing that she was attempting to put it delicately.  He figured he would save her the trouble.

 

"Very well--  _problems_  ."  Vivienne shifted against her desk and picked up her tea to take a sip.  "But we haven't revisited the subject since I brought you on last year-- are you doing alright?"

 

Dorian sighed softly and returned to his tea.  Vivienne was not a particularly warm and caring person.  She couldn't be, having grown up in Orlais, but she did care about things, and magical education was very high on her very short list of things that she cared about.

 

"I'm fine," Dorian told her.  "Aside from my father's dedication to ruining my freedom.  I apologize for him, and can assure you that my personal life will do nothing so dramatic as sully the Spire's name."

 

Vivienne laughed and waved her hand.  "Oh, darling, the last thing I'm worried about is the Spire's reputation.  Not even dismantling the Templar order would accomplish that."

 

"A few of the Free Marches circles are considering it," Dorian mentioned, though he knew that Vivienne would never allow such a thing to happen at the Spire.

 

Vivienne gave him a bemused smile and shook her head.  "Oh, but I love feeling so safe and protected."

 

Dorian returned the smile, and the moment was almost pleasant before it passed.

 

“Really, though, darling, a  _Qunari_?”

 

" _Le coeur veut ce qu'il désire_ ," Dorian quipped.   _The heart wants what it wants_.

Vivienne laughed because they both knew Dorian's heart had little to do with his relationship choices anymore and graced him with as genuine a smile as he had ever seen from her.  "Well, as I said, your personal life is really no concern of the Spire.  My only concern is that you teach your classes and don't smell like indulgence when you come to work."

 

"Aha..." So she had had a report about his night class last week.  "Yes, Madam de Fer.  That sort of behavior is intolerable.  I would  _never_."

 

Vivienne raised a perfect, thin brow at him and flicked his fingers toward the door to her office.  "Well, then.  Now that we've had our chat, get back to your class."

 

Dorian stood and felt his entire body relax as he walked to the door.

 

"Oh, and Dorian?"  Vivienne called after him.

 

He paused at the door.

 

"Please do remember that the only people who fall from the top are the ones who assume they are untouchable.  Just because you are the best does not mean that I will allow you to get away with infringements that may harm or hamper the education of our fellow mages."  Vivienne's tone cut him like shards of ice.

 

"Yes, Madam de Fer," he replied as smoothly as possible.

 

He took the student and faculty elevator down to the forth floor and returned to his classroom, feeling almost as nervous as when he had left.

 

:::::

 

Dorian barely remembered to pick up pizza on the way home, and he wondered how many was "lots," as he stared up at the menu.  He tried to remember the number of men Iron Bull had said he would bring, but couldn't quite remember if it was five or six.  Or maybe it had been  _hands_.  Yes, that seemed like a very Iron Bull thing to say.

 

Maker, everyone was beginning to look at him strangely.

 

"Just give me five pizzas-- three pepperoni and two cheese," Dorian finally told the man.

 

"Do you want breadsticks or cheesy bread?"  The young man asked.

 

"Sure..." Dorian pursed his lips before adding, "two of each," when the man continued to look at him expectantly.

 

He left with two desert pizzas and a dozen pizza rolls as well.

 

If the Iron Bull and his friends didn't eat all of it, at least he would have lunch and dinner for a while.

 

Dorian pulled up and wasn't quite sure where to park at his own house.

 

There was a massive four door truck in his driveway, a smaller two door truck was parked behind it, and an older sedan sat on the curb.

 

Dorian pulled in behind the sedan and hoped that his neighbor wouldn't bitch at him the next morning about his car being slightly over the line that separated their lots.

 

Before Dorian could even get out of his car, the door to his house had opened, and he heard music and laughter spill out.  The sun was just beginning to set, and the lights on inside the house framed a bulky figure with a massive rack of horns before the door shut behind him and the Iron Bull strode across the grass to Dorian's car.

 

"I hope I didn't get too much food," Dorian said, walking around to his trunk and popping it open.

 

Iron Bull rested his hand on Dorian's hip and gave him a squeeze as he looked over his head at the stacks of boxes.  "One thing you'll learn about my boys is that there's no such thing as 'too much,' when it comes to food."

 

"Well, that's encouraging," Dorian chuckled and briefly hoped that the Iron Bull might hug him.  It passed when his hip was released, and the man began stacking pizza boxes.

 

"C'mon, we're about half way through," the Iron Bull told Dorian.

 

He followed the Iron Bull across the grass and at least opened the door for the Iron Bull since he was only carrying his bag of notes and books from the Spire.  Dorian followed the Iron Bull through the living room stacked with meticulously packed and labeled boxes.  He set his bag down on the couch and continued on to the dining room while the Iron Bull boomed, “pizza’s here!”  

 

A dwarf hurried past Dorian, probably hidden behind a stack of boxes in the living room, and two female elves were working together to pack up Dorian’s kitchen.  One was blonde with green vallaslin on her face, arms and hands while the other was brunette and looked like she would cut off Dorian’s ear for asking her name.

 

“Are there plates left out?” Dorian asked the blonde elf politely. 

 

“Yep! We started packing up the pantry first and just started on the pots and pans,” she said brightly before turning to her companion.  “Skinner, sweetie, grab plates.”

 

Skinner sent her a look with a surprising lack of malice before she turned to dig around in Dorian’s cabinets. 

 

Dorian turned when he heard boots coming down the hall from his room, and the man from the sandwich shop emerged from the hallway leading back to the library and Dorian’s bedroom.  He barely gave Dorian a glance before crossing to where the Iron Bull stood at the table and slapping his back.  

 

“Think we have enough pizza for Dalish, chief?” he asked.

 

The Iron Bull laughed and wrapped an arm around his neck before dragging him back over to where Dorian stood.  “Dorian, this is part of my crew.  This one’s Cremesius—you met briefly at the sandwich shop—and those two are Dalish and Skinner, take a guess at who’s who.”  The Iron Bull sent Dorian a wink and he chuckled as Skinner handed Dalish a stack of plates to hand to Dorian.  “And last but not least, this is Rocky,” the Iron Bull let go of Cremesius long enough to motion to the stocky dwarf who was now opening and sorting pizza boxes.

 

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” Dorian said, taking the plates to the table and setting them down.  “I’m grateful that you’ve all come to help out.  Extremely grateful.  Please, go ahead and dig in, I’ve got to get started on the library—“

 

The Iron Bull made a noise in the back of his throat and reached out to catch Dorian’s shoulder.  “Sit down and have some food before you do that,” he ordered him, pulling him back toward the table.

 

Dorian frowned a little and glanced at the Iron Bull’s friends.  They didn’t seem to be paying them much attention.  Cremesius was taking an entire box of pizza to the end of the table and Skinner and Dalish seemed to be fighting over the second box of cheese pizza.

 

Dorian reluctantly walked over to get a plate and sat down.  The Iron Bull sat beside him and leaned across to get a slice of pizza.

 

“Two pieces,” Dorian told the Iron Bull, pulling two pieces of pepperoni pizza onto his plate.

 

“Two pieces,” the Iron Bull agreed, “and a desert thing,” he put a piece of cinnamon and icing topped pizza on Dorian’s plate as well.

 

Dorian gave him an annoyed look, but the Iron Bull just grinned at him.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pizza, beer, and a little awkwardness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What does a person say when they start writing a fic again after a year and a half hiatus?

The Iron Bull’s friends were just as interesting and strange as he was.  Skinner, a sour-faced elf with dark hair, was not actually interested in murdering Dorian, she just had a naturally angry face, or at least that’s what Dalish, who appeared to be either her bubbly best friend or her fair-haired lover, told him.  It didn’t take long before Rocky, a beardless dwarf with a moustache almost as majestic as Dorian’s own, and Dalish--who was “definitely not a mage”-- got Dorian talking about his lectures and research, something he could go on and on about for hours.  

 

Which he would have, if it hadn't made the Iron Bull look like he was about to squirm out of his skin.  Dorian knew it was the subject matter, because every time he glanced at the Iron Bull in the middle of describing something about pyrotechnical magic, he looked like he was ready to head north and not stop until he was back in Par Vollen or Seheron or the other two places Dorian knew the names of in the land of the Qun.

 

Once he realized that his large acquaintance was feeling uncomfortable with the topic, he changed it, remembering the tales he had heard of Qunari mages with their mouths sewn shut and their arms bound.  That kind of thing had to just be propaganda, right?  The Iron Bull didn't think that Dorian would be better off like that, did he?  Did he think that _ Jonas _ would be better off like that as well?

 

As he moved on to asking what had brought the very strange moving crew together, that same uncomfortable feeling he had had before resurfaced.  The same feeling from when the Iron Bull had mentioned that he was from the Qunari islands and again when he let his facade down to show Dorian the smart, calculating individual that lie beneath the genial, friendly Qunari that Dorian had first met.

 

They were from two polar opposite cultures whose home countries were engaged in a cold war, and Dorian was eating pizza with, drinking beer with and planning to fuck him.

 

Dorian took his leave as soon as he could once the feeling had crept upon him, his agreed upon pizza was long gone, and he was halfway through his fourth beer.  It was a good time to get back to work.

 

From the library, Dorian could hear muffled laughter, and the Iron Bull’s voice in particular, as he started loosening back up out of Dorian’s presence and making up for the quiet near-half-hour.  He had always had a borderline gentle tone around Dorian, but around his friends, he talked more and louder, it was almost cute.

 

He sat on the floor, sorting his books carefully and slowly. So far, there was a stack he couldn't live without and the rest would go straight into boxes.

 

He didn't hear anyone enter the room until he heard a whistle behind him.

 

“Is that for me or the library?” Dorian asked, staring between two editions of the same book and trying to decide which one he wanted to put in storage and which he wanted to keep with him.

 

“That depends.  Why are you staring at two books with the same title and looking constipated?” the Iron Bull asked, moving to sit in one of Dorian’s overstuffed chairs. 

 

“Because I want to take both, but I’m already approaching the limits of the first of my smaller shelves,” Dorian explained, carefully setting the volumes down.

 

The Iron Bull was quiet for a solid minute, but Dorian could feel his attention on him.  He glanced over to see the Iron Bull, well, sitting was the wrong word.   _ Splaying  _ was a lot more accurate and, after all the flirting and sleeping and the kiss and the alcohol currently in his system, Dorian couldn't think of one damned reason he should act like he wasn't staring.

 

“You want to take a break?” the Iron Bull asked, sounding amused.

 

_ Yes. _

 

“Your friends are still here,” Dorian pointed out, but he was shifting to turn toward the Iron Bull anyway.

 

A chuckle rattled out of the Iron Bull’s chest.  It made his stomach jump beneath his tightly stretched t-shirt, and the corner of his eye creased in amusement.  Dorian picked up his half-bottle of beer to move it out of the way, move forward, but, instead, he took a drink from it and stayed where he was, no matter how inviting the Iron Bull looked. 

 

“I just asked if you wanted to take a break,” the Iron Bull said, his eye watching Dorian closely as he shifted to lean back, cracking his back and making a groan a little louder than necessary.  

 

“Not like I asked you to suck my cock,” he pointed out with a smirk, timing it just as Dorian went to take a sip from his bottle.

 

Dorian nearly choked on his beer.  It was only due to his extensive and rigorous childhood training in the courts of the Imperium that he didn't end up hacking and heaving like a dying hyena.  

 

“ _ Vishante kaffas,  _ how do you just  _ say _ those kinds of things and know that I won't tell you to fuck off?” Dorian asked, appraising the Iron Bull.  Despite the fact that he had never done  _ that _ particular act before, with the way the Iron Bull was splayed out on the chair, he wanted to  _ offer _ to.

 

“I don't,” he admitted, shrugging.  “Helps me figure out where your head is, though.”

 

“What are you talking about?  I’m perfectly tranquil,” Dorian said with a huff.

 

“No,” the Iron Bull said with another chuckle that stretched his t-shirt and made Dorian wonder why he even wore it.  The Iron Bull would look more chaste if he were shirtless.  “Your face is hungrier than the boys after a tough job,” he pointed out.

 

Dorian rolled his eyes and finished off his beer.  It hadn't been  _ that _ long since he’d been laid, he could put it off a few more days--or longer--he didn't  _ need _ to be treated like this, like he was an open book to someone he’d only just met.  Even if it  _ was _ going to get him pinned by a massive gray body and thoroughly--

 

Nope, he was fine.

 

“Well, that was a grand break,” Dorian said, setting his empty bottle aside and turning back to stare at the two volumes he had been trying to decide between. His mind wouldn't stop, though, and everything that didn't have to do with sorting his library kept pulling him off track.

 

“What’s on your mind?” the Iron Bull asked after a few moments of silence, in which Dorian tried very, very hard to forget that he was even there,  _ sprawling  _ like he owned the chair and didn't know what he was  _ doing _ to Dorian.  The real meaning behind the words masked them to Dorian, “what’s wrong?” was all he heard and it made him want to hide away in his stacks of books and never leave the study.

 

“Nothing, I'm fine,” Dorian lied, though he didn't expect the Iron Bull to believe it.  He didn't even believe it and it was something he frequently fed himself.  Usually with a bottle of too-young Antivan sip-sip.

 

The Iron Bull didn't say anything, just watched him finally return to sorting through his collection of books, the two up for debate forgotten right in front of him.

 

“What’s the difference between the two books?” the Iron Bull asked after nearly an hour of just sprawling and watching.

 

Dorian held up his finger as he continued perusing one of the books he was considering taking, then he flipped it closed with a sigh and put it in a box destined for storage.

 

“One is a translation based upon texts available during the fifth blight,” he explained, gingerly taking the two books back up and no doubt getting that constipated look of indecision on his face again.  A look he hadn't been aware of until the Iron Bull had so kindly pointed it out.  “The footnotes have a lot of insight into the cultural significance of the text, and in one section, they really flesh out the parts where the source material ended up sounding dry.”  

 

He waited for the Iron Bull to snort or chuckle and say that it  _ all _ sounded dry or something, but he didn't, he just nodded and looked at Dorian expectantly, waiting patiently for him to continue.

 

“The other edition is newer,” he concluded, feeling his face heat at the attention.  He  _ lived _ for attention, an ear to speak to, eyes to watch him, and all the Iron Bull’s ears and eye made him want to do was babble in the most unattractive way imaginable.  The Iron Bull was no scholar, and the subject of most of Dorian’s library was magical in nature.  “The translation is much more accurate, and the misinformation due to the gap in translating material is refuted.  So it has more correct information, but none of the footnotes that bring the information together in a palatable way.”

 

“And  _ that _ puts that look on your face?” the Iron Bull asked, his tone amused, but Dorian could tell that it wasn't the mocking sort.  It was the sort of amusement he had felt when Felix made little successes at his magic.  He had been so thrilled when he finally accomplished a fireball spell that Dorian himself had perfected at the tender age of nine.

 

“Yes, do you think it’s silly?” Dorian asked, feeling an upwell of bittersweetness at the thought of his dear friend.

 

“Nah.  You're passionate about it,” the Iron Bull pointed out, shifting to get a more comfortable slump in the chair and causing it to creak.  “It’s good to have something like that,” he said, eyeing the books again.  “Even if it is about weird magical crap,” he tacked on, the faintest air of distaste in his voice.

 

“It’s only weird to those who don't live with it,” Dorian replied, not even ruffled by the comment.  He had gotten used to mages being treated differently in southern Thedas, it figured that a big, brawny type like the Iron Bull wouldn't quite understand the intricacy or the thrill of studying magic.

 

Silence sat between them for a while before Dorian finally put both of the books on the pile to take with him.

 

“Big decision,” the Iron Bull commented.

 

“One can never have too many books about the fade and it's connection to natural phenomena,” Dorian chirped cheerfully before beginning to sort through his other books.

 

“Natural phenomena?” the Iron Bull asked, sitting up a little in the chair.  “No, wait, I don't want to know.  I didn't ask.”

 

Dorian chuckled and kept sorting.  So magic really  _ was _ something that ruffled the Iron Bull’s feathers.  

 

“If you have such an aversion to magic, then why are you sniffing around a mage--and a Tevinter one, at that?” Dorian asked.

 

“The small fortune you spend on hair product and cologne is finally paying off,” the Iron Bull replied with a snort.  Dorian spared him a soft chuckle and waited for the real reason, if there was one. 

 

“Seriously, though, humans all look the same to me, I didn't realize it until I saw the robes hanging in the entryway, and by then I didn't want to have to explain to the kid the whole cultural  _ thing _ .”

 

“Cultural  _ thing _ ?” Dorian asked, looking up from flipping through a reference text on herbs.  “You mean putting mages into militant camps,  _ silencing _ them and  _ leashing _ them?”

 

“Yeah,” the Iron Bull grunted, rubbing the bridge of his horns nervously.  “That.”

 

“I assumed that the stories I heard were mostly propaganda,” Dorian said, letting the book fall closed pointedly.  His stomach churned with a mix of the same discomfort from before and a little hurt.  “If my being a mage really makes you uncomfortable, please, take a box of pizza on the way out.”

 

The Iron Bull’s eyebrows jumped and he shifted to sit properly in the chair, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. 

 

“I don't care  _ what _ you are, Dorian,” the Iron Bull told him, and the knots tangling in his chest and stomach relaxed just a bit.  “You’re intelligent, attractive, and you’re a little bit of a smart ass,” the Iron Bull’s eye stared right into Dorian's and he felt a bit like he was choking on air he wasn't breathing.  “I like those qualities, and I like you.  I don't want to see you run yourself into the ground like you were doing--that’s why I'm here now.”

 

Dorian scoffed, because it was easier than acknowledging the warmth spreading through his chest.  He hadn't had anyone care about him in a long, long time.  He hadn't allowed anyone to, not really.  Not since Felix.  He regretted the dismissive noise immediately, even if the Iron Bull didn't seem phased by it.

 

He didn't deserve Dorian’s defense mechanisms.

 

“I’m not bad at things, usually,” he said, instead of apologizing.

 

“Yeah?” The way that it was asked, he knew that the Iron Bull and he were thinking the same thing.  He was terrible at accepting help, at letting people close.

 

Dorian rubbed his face and lie back on the floor with a sigh.  “Yeah,” he said. 

 

The chair creaked, and Dorian felt the heaviness of the Iron Bull’s boots through the floorboards.  He expected him to leave, give up on the spoiled, rich brat who didn't know how to let people in anymore-- but, instead, the Iron Bull shifted some books out of the way and lay down beside him, close, but not touching. 

 

“Nice ceiling,” the Iron Bull commented after a moment of silence.

 

“You’ve seen quite a bit of my baggage so far,” Dorian said, turning his head to look at the Iron Bull and seeing that one of his horns was just an inch away from his face.  “Your people don't like mages, and yet you’re still here.”

 

“Yep,” the Iron Bull replied.

 

“I like you too,” Dorian said, after rolling over in his head several questions that were immediately vetoed.  He didn't want to know why the Iron Bull was really still around, and he certainly didn't want to know how long the Iron Bull intended to keep making sure he was taking care of himself.  That would tell him how quickly it would end, or give him a way to slip out of it without opening up.

 

“Good,” the Iron Bull’s mouth twisted into a smile at the ceiling and his eye rolled over to look at Dorian.

 

Dorian felt himself smiling back.

 

“That’s all I need from you,” the Iron Bull told him, turning on his side and holding his head up with his arm to compensate for the jut of his horns.  “It’s no pressure, no commitment, just two people who like each other.”

 

“That sounds rather simple,” Dorian commented.

 

“It is,” the Iron Bull assured him, his eye warm and rather gentle in the warm lighting of the study.  “So, how about another break?”

 

“We don't really have the time,” Dorian said, but his eyes had shifted to the Iron Bull’s lips, which weren’t even trying to hide his smirk.  “Maker’s breath…  _ fine _ .”   Dorian shifted to sit up and moved closer before kissing the Iron Bull.

 

It wasn’t as romantically charged as the first kiss, but it lasted longer, and that made it just as good.  Dorian brought his hand up to cup the Iron Bull’s stubbled jaw, and chuckled softly when two massive arms wrapped around his waist and dragged him up on top of the Iron Bull as he lie back on the floor again.

 

He smelled like coconut and cocoa butter underneath the musk of a day’s work.  His lips tasted like beer and pizza, but it wasn’t entirely unappealing.  The Iron Bull’s thin lips parted and he tilted his head to kiss Dorian deeper, making an appreciative noise in the back of his throat.

 

It rumbled through Dorian’s spine and gut, made his toes curl and his fingers cling to the Iron Bull’s thick shoulder.  His hand on the Iron Bull’s cheek slid up to wrap around one of the massive horns jutting from the crown of the Iron Bull’s head.  As soon as he realized what he had done, Dorian pulled the hand back, only for the Iron Bull to catch it with his own massive mitt.  He steered Dorian’s fingers back up to the horn and firmly wrapped them around it.

 

“You can pull me by them if you want,” the Iron Bull rumbled between kisses that left Dorian panting for more.  

 

“ _ Venhedis _ ,” Dorian cursed before dragging the Iron Bull forward again and kissing him with more gusto.  Maker, if he was able to get Dorian so into a kiss, what  _ was _ the Iron Bull going to be like in bed?  Were there really  _ rounds _ involved?  Dorian hoped so as he drew his other hand up to grasp the Iron Bull’s other horn, holding him closer--

 

The door of the study squeaked, and Dorian didn't have time to extricate himself at all before Krem snarked, “eugh,  _ Maker, _ Chief!  Let the poor bastard get his shit packed up.”

 

Dorian dropped his face against the Iron Bull’s neck with a groan.  He felt the arms around him tighten, and his neck flushed at being caught snogging by one of the Iron Bull’s friends.  His previous complaint had had merit, then.  He wondered what Krem’s reaction would have been if he had walked in on Dorian between the Iron Bull’s knees.  He pressed his hot face into the Iron Bull’s neck and the musk of sweat was worse there, not as appealing as the little whiff tempered with the sweet tang of coconut and mellow cocoa butter.

 

“Fuck off, Krem,” the Iron Bull said, though there was a chuckle rumbling in his chest and Dorian could feel it through his whole body, lying on top of him like he was.  

 

It  _ almost _ made the stench bearable. One of the Iron Bull’s hands came up to pet the back of his hair and prevented the surprised glance that would have made him look utterly ridiculous and also rescued him from Qunari BO.

 

“Sure,” Krem snorted.  The study door squeaked again before the latch clicked into place.

 

Once they were alone, Dorian fought his way out of the Iron Bull’s arms and took a deep breath of musty study air.  “Do you ever bathe?!” he asked, attempting to get up, but the Iron Bull’s arms wrapped back around him and he found himself crushed against the Iron Bull’s broad, muscled chest.  His stomach wasn't as firm as Dorian had been expecting, but it didn't keep him from feeling an electric pulse through his gut.

 

“Why, you want to watch?” the Iron Bull asked, the corners of his lips twitching as he tried to avoid laughing, like that would offend Dorian even more.

 

_ Yes. _

 

“Of course not,” Dorian scoffed, smacking the Iron Bull’s chest and almost using a playful spell before he realized that it would change their dynamic to something more serious.  “The smell would be worse,” he said, trying to affect his voice to be as snooty as possible.  It honestly didn't take that much effort.

 

“It’s not as bad as human sweat,” the Iron Bull replied, though he didn't actually sound defensive.  

 

“That is  _ not true _ ,” Dorian insisted, wrinkling his nose and smacking him again.

 

The Iron Bull chuckled and let Dorian go after another squeeze.

 

Dorian stayed where he was for a full second before he realized he was free.  He scrambled off of the Iron Bull and ended up knocking over a few stacks of books before he could straighten up enough to figure out his sorting system again.

 

The Iron Bull sat up himself and watched him curse and restack the books.

 

“Want me to go ahead and start packing some of those?” he asked after Dorian almost toppled another stack.

 

“You might,” Dorian said, scanning through a book on astrology’s effects on the potential of certain herbs.

 

“How about I rip one in half?” the Iron Bull said, when Dorian flipped a page and kept scanning.

 

“Very helpful,” was the absent reply.

 

The Iron Bull laughed and built a small box before beginning to fill it with the books he was planning on taking with him.

 

It took several minutes for Dorian to lower one of the books he had been scanning through to look at the Iron Bull.  “Did you threaten to destroy one of my books earlier?”

 

“I  _ offered _ ,” the Iron Bull corrected him with a crooked smirk.  “You seemed to think it was a good idea.”

 

Dorian grabbed a sheet of note paper to crumple up and throw at him.  “You’re an ass,” he accused.

 

“You’re no fun with your nose in a book,” the Iron Bull replied, throwing the wad of paper back.

 

“I'm  _ working _ , which is what  _ you _ are supposed to be doing too,” he pointed out.

 

“Nah, today is my day off.  This is just play,” he told Dorian.

 

“You have a very strange version of play,” Dorian replied with a snort.

 

“I’ve been told,” the Iron Bull said, roguish smirk making the scar bisecting his lips stretch.

 

Dorian wanted to drag him into another kiss, but he buried himself in another book instead.  “You mentioned that,” Dorian agreed, once he had decided not to take the book with him and set it aside to grab another one from the shelf.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” the Iron Bull asked, and, for once, he didn't sound like he was playing some great game of cat and mouse with Dorian.

 

“Do I want to talk about what?” Dorian asked as he flipped through a few pages of prologue to get to the chapter list.

 

“Sex.”

 

“ _ Maker _ , no,” Dorian said with a laugh.  The expression on the Iron Bull’s face-- calm, understanding,  _ patient _ \-- made him stop.  “Why would we? Sex isn't something you talk about and plan,” Dorian explained, wrinkling his nose.  “Unless there’s a certain act you think might make me uncomfortable, which, I can assure you, there is none.”

 

“I do.  Sometimes, if it’s important enough,” the Iron Bull said with a shrug.  “I want to be able to give you what you need.”

 

“What I  _ need  _ is less drama in my life and more focus on my work,” Dorian said, rolling his eyes and chucking a book his father had given him into the box the Iron Bull was filling.

 

The Iron Bull carefully straightened it before resuming putting books into the box.

 

“Wants and needs are different, Dorian,” he explained as he taped up the box, marked it to be taken to the new apartment, and built another.  “You  _ want _ your father to stop acting like a prick and give you the love and support you deserve, but what you  _ need _ is an outlet for the pain and frustration caused by not getting that.”

 

“And that’s what sex with you will be?” Dorian asked, sounding incredulous.

 

“That’s the plan.”

 

“... I know I  _ said _ that no act would make me uncomfortable, but I’m  _ not  _ going to call you ‘daddy,’” Dorian said firmly.

 

The Iron Bull smiled but didn't laugh, not like Dorian expected him to, which made him think that they were talking about something more serious than just a regular fuck.  Great.  Just what he needed in his complicated life.

 

“Are you going to try to fix my attachment issues?” he asked, trying to sound properly scandalized instead of unimpressed.  He’d honestly been expecting something different--something better than another handsome man trying to save him from himself.

 

“That’s not what I mean,” the Iron Bull finally said after a moment of consideration.

 

“Then what  _ do _ you mean?” Dorian asked, frustration and uncertainty sharpening his tone.

 

“Listen, whatever you’ve got going on, Dorian, it’s not healthy, and it’s not right to just leave you alone to sort it out on your own-- you probably won't.”

 

Dorian tried not to feel too offended by the Iron Bull’s accuracy and boldness.  It didn't help that his words had a sort of matter-of-fact quality, a straightforward, blunt tone that was also soft and warm at the same time.

 

“So you want to just, what, bang it out?” Dorian asked.

 

“Yeah,” the Iron Bull replied, candid and not at all joking.

 

“How… how does that even work?” he asked.

 

“Well, I ask you what you're into, you ask me what I’m into,” the Iron Bull wagged his index finger back and forth between them, then shrugged and fluttered all three of his remaining fingers at the ceiling like it was just that simple, “we find a happy medium, maybe test some boundaries every once in awhile, and there’s a whole lot of lube involved.”

 

Dorian laughed at that and shook his head as he realized that he was reading the same book title for the third time and was still unsure what volume he was holding.  He set it down in his lap and twisted to look at the Iron Bull incredulously.  “What, like a sex shrink?”

 

“Basically.”  The Iron Bull nodded.

 

Dorian wrinkled his nose and shrugged.  “I suppose there’s no harm in trying it.”

 

“If you’re ever uncomfortable, we’ll stop right away,” the Iron Bull said, sitting up a bit and holding his hand out.  “Just say the word, ‘ _ katoh _ ,’ and everything stops.”

 

“ ‘ _ Kah-to _ ?’ ” Dorian asked, raising a brow at the hand.

 

“ _ Ka-toh,  _ it’s Qunlat for, ‘stop,’ ” he explained.

 

Dorian hesitantly placed his hand into the Iron Bull’s, and he received a firm squeeze.  “ _ Katoh _ ,” he tried again.

 

The Iron Bull dropped his hand and stared at him expectantly.  “If you need to test it, you can,” he told Dorian.  “Anytime, you can say it and I’ll stop.”

 

“Anytime? Even--” Dorian wasn't quite sure what the end of the thought was, but the Iron Bull cut him off before he could finish it properly.

 

“Yes.  Anytime.  Period.”

 

“That sounds… rather intense,” Dorian said, feeling that twinge of uncertainty, something primal telling him to run.

 

“It’s going to be,” the Iron Bull assured him.  “It's going to be intense and  _ good _ .” His voice dropped half an octave, and sent sparks crawling up Dorian’s spine.

 

“ _ Alright _ , well,  _ books _ ,” Dorian said, trying not to babble as his mind went shooting off into several very not-books directions at once.  He squinted at the title on the cover and read it three more times before tossing it into the box the Iron Bull had in front of him.

 

“ _ The World and It’s Magic _ ?  I don't think you should take that one,” the Iron Bull said helpfully.

 

“Shit--” Dorian grabbed the book from the Iron Bull’s hand and tossed it in a storage box before beginning to paw through the other books to see what he may have carelessly put into the “take” box.  

 

Thankfully, they were all pertinent, and he didn't have to resort everything.  Unfortunately, he really only had a few shelves left and could choose perhaps thirty more books out of several hundred that he still had left to pack.  Fantastic.

 

“While we’re at it, how about all the other magic ones you don't take with you,” the Iron Bull suggested.

 

“Why, are you afraid demons will watch from the spines while you court me?” Dorian asked with a snort before he realized that there was a very significant chance that the Iron Bull would believe that that was a thing.  His expression spoke volumes.

 

“Oh, come on, that’s not at all possible!  You need to relax.  Magic is a tool meant to improve the world, not possess people without cause,” he told the Iron Bull while rolling his eyes.

 

“Yeah, sure, you're the expert,” the Iron Bull said, tone and posture completely unconvinced.

 

Dorian rolled his eyes with a sigh and tumbled another book into the storage box.  “I actually  _ am. _ ”

 

The Iron Bull scoffed, but didn't argue, and the library sorting lapsed into a surprisingly amicable silence where Dorian tackled bookcase after bookcase of carefully collected and curated tomes while the Iron Bull packed them into their respective boxes and occasionally left to get fresh beers for them both.

 

One time he also brought half of a leftover box of pizza and Dorian ate a cold slice just to get the Iron Bull to stop looking at him expectantly.  The Iron Bull finished off the box and they went right back to packing.

 

At two in the morning, Dorian put the last book into a storage box and groaned as he lay back on the floor with a sigh.  He had eaten a few more slices of pizza in the interim and the Iron Bull had started bringing him water rather than booze around midnight.

 

His back ached from being bent over the books for so long.  It was an ache tied to nostalgic memories of hours in Alexius’s study with Felix, searching for that one paragraph that would point them in the right direction in their research.

 

He smiled and arched his back to crack it before large gray hands gently nudged him to turn over and thumbs dug into the meat of his back right beneath his shoulder blades, close to his spine.

 

Well, Felix never gave him back rubs, that was for certain.  

 

“I'm honestly impressed you survived this long in a magical library,” he commented, groaning when the Iron Bull dug his thumbs deeper.

 

“Helped that there was a pretty mage expert here to protect me,” the Iron Bull said, smoothing his palm over the spot once he had worked out the knot.

 

Dorian laughed and then let out a sigh as the massage continued.  “I am pretty,” he agreed with a smile.

 

“Very pretty,” the Iron Bull snorted, working his way down to give Dorian’s ass a squeeze.  “And you have a nice ass.”

 

“I suppose you’re an expert?” Dorian asked with a small smile.

 

“I actually  _ am _ ,” the Iron Bull said, his voice mimicking Dorian’s accent for just a second before he started laughing.

 

Dorian chuckled and turned over to sit up, his back feeling much better and the Iron Bull sitting far closer than he had expected.  He felt need coil in his stomach and leaned forward until his lips were barely touching the Iron Bull’s.  “Are you  _ sure _ about waiting until Friday?” he asked.

 

“Yep.  You’ll have gotten a few more good nights rest and square meals,” the Iron Bull said, his tone light but firm.  “It’s what’s best,” he assured Dorian, who couldn't help but hear the unsaid  _ for you _ .

 

“After all this build up, Friday better be the night of my life,” he said with a forced pout.  He was starting to feel less impatient and more expectant.  It was going to happen and in the meantime, he had a Qunari giving him tons of attention without asking for anything in return.

 

The Iron Bull pressed a brief, chaste kiss to Dorian’s pout. “No promises, but it  _ is  _ going to be  _ fun _ ,” he said with a chuckle.

 

Dorian laughed and reached up to tug the Iron Bull back down by one of his horns.  “Well, that’s all I need,” he said before releasing the Iron Bull and standing to begin marking boxes and moving them out of the study and into the hallway.


End file.
